Mohammed Azhar Ali Khan

 

It is a heart-rending, ongoing tragedy. Aboriginal women have been disappearing mysteriously since the 1960s. The victims number 600 by one estimate.  The Native Women's Association of Canada says there may be more but their cases were not reported. Their relatives fear that the women fell prey to violent crime.



Year after year relatives of victims and their supporters flock to Parliament Hill to demand that the federal government arrange a public inquiry to find out what happened and how these crimes can be stopped. This year's annual Sisters in Spirit vigil was the eighth one in Ottawa and drew hundreds of people to Parliament Hill in heavy rain to express their pain. It was one of the 216 protests throughout Canada and abroad.



This year's vigil took place just before James Anaya, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of  Indigenous People, arrived in Canada to look into the situation of the Aboriginal people. The gathering also took place during the 250th anniversary of the treaties the British Crown signed with Aboriginal people recognizing their rights.



Opposition parties, provincial governments and Aboriginal leaders have called for a national commission of inquiry. The federal government has set up a parliamentary Special Committee on Violence Against Indigenous Women which is expected to report back next year.



Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne stated that although violence against Aboriginal women is an extremely important issue, it is only a part of the Aboriginal people's plight. She said that students on Aboriginal reserves, for example, get $3,500 less than do students off reserve.  She said the federal government should work with the provinces and Aboriginal leaders to tackle the problems faced by Aboriginal people.



The Human Rights Watch of New York issued a scathing report against alleged abuse and mistreatment of Aboriginal women by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP is investigating the matter.



In addition to demonstrating to ask for a public inquiry, some Aboriginals and their supporters wore orange shirts after reading about the experiences  of an Aboriginal girl of British Columbia called Phyllis Jack. The National Film Board of Canada also made a documentary, "We Were Children," on the subject. Phyllis wrote: "I went to the Mission for one year. I had just turned six years old. We never had very much money, and there was no welfare, but somehow my granny managed to buy me a new outfit to go to the Mission school in. I remember going to Robinson's store and picking out a shiny orange shirt. It had eyelets and lace, and I felt so pretty in that shirt and excited to be going to school! Of course, when I got to the Mission, they stripped me, and took away my clothes, including the orange shirt! I never saw it again, except on other kids. I didn't understand why they wouldn't give it back to me, it was mine! Since then the color orange has always reminded me of that and how my feelings didn't matter, how no one cared and how I felt like I was worth nothing.  



 "I finally get it, that the feeling of worthlessness and insignificance, ingrained in me from my first day at the Mission, affected the way I lived my life for many years. Even now, when I know nothing could be further from the truth, I still sometimes feel that I don't matter. Even with all the work I've done!"



One person who wore orange to express her solidarity wrote: "Phyllis' orange shirt is a symbol of so many losses experienced by those who were sent to Indian Residential Schools over several generations. Losses of family, culture, language, freedom, parenting, self-esteem and self-worth were experienced by everyone. Beatings, sexual abuse and neglect plagued many."



The disappearance of some 600 Aboriginal women is of course very different from the Aboriginal people's plight in the residential schools. The government forcibly took 150,000 Aboriginal children from their families, over many decades, and forced them into church-run residential schools. They were denied their language, culture, spirituality, food and lifestyle and they were forced to adopt Christianity and European culture. In 2008 Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized to the Aboriginal people in the House of Commons for that policy.



But what the disappearance of the Aboriginal women and the residential schools have in common is that they are patterns of the  Aboriginal people's past and ongoing sufferings in their own ancestral land.



Many Aboriginal reserves are like Third World slums. Despair, violence and alcoholism are common, as are serious health problems.



The suicide rate among Aboriginal youth is five to seven times higher than the Canadian average and for Inuit (Eskimo) youth it is 11 times higher. Children on reserves are eight times likelier to be taken away by child and family services. Aboriginal women are more than five times more likely than average Canadian women to die from violence.  It is a dark stain on Canada's record and conscience.

– Mohammed Azhar Ali Khan is a retired Canadian journalist, civil servant and refugee judge.