Aboriginal Rights

• What You Can Do
• Background
• Resources
• Additional Information

On March 22, 2004, The United Church of Canada joined the Native Women's Association of Canada (NWAC) and the Anglican Church of Canada to launch the Sisters in Spirit campaign calling for solutions to the violence Aboriginal women encounter in Canada. The campaign called on the government of Canada to establish a $10 million fund for research and education related to violence against Aboriginal women.

The call to join the Native Women's Association of Canada was made by the President of the association at a 2003 gathering of Canadian churches in Ottawa. The president, Terri Brown, spoke about the disturbing reality that approximately 500 Aboriginal women have gone missing in the last two decades. She outlined the limited or lack of investigation into most of these cases and issued a call to the churches to support Aboriginal women in the struggle for their fundamental human rights to life and security.

Key goals of the Sisters in Spirit campaign include:

• Participatory research to establish the number of Aboriginal women who are missing women or have been killed in Canada.
• Public education to increase awareness of underlying causes of violence against Aboriginal women.
• Educational workshops on the missing women and their families.
• A hotline and registry for the purposes of reporting missing Aboriginal women and keeping statistics.

In February 2005 the federal government laid out plans to announce $5 million in funding to NWAC for its Sisters in Spirit Campaign, to be included in the federal budget. But the Prime Minister's Office informed NWAC President Bev Jacobs that this announcement was stalled by "one of the three ministries responsible for funding." NWAC had been negotiating with three federal departments: Status of Women Canada, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada and Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada.

United Church members showed dedication and support through their letters and phone calls to the Government of Canada, and in November 2005 the federal government announced it would honour its promise to set up a $5 million fund in support of the Sisters in Spirit Campaign. These funds were designated in the February 2005 budget and will be made available to NWAC over a five-year period (2005-2010). This support of the work of NWAC has resulted in the hiring of six new staff who are working in the areas of policy, research, communication, education, and community development. This funding is an important step toward improving the lives of Aboriginal women.

What You Can Do

Provide Information to NWAC

NWAC's work focuses on strategies to continue to educate, raise awareness, and to reduce the ongoing sexual and racial violence against Aboriginal women resulting in disappearance or death. To that end, NWAC is searching for Aboriginal families whose sisters may have been murdered or are missing. If you have any information to share, please contact Sisters in Spirit at:

• Native Women's Association of Canada
  1292 Wellington St. West
  Ottawa, ON K1Y 3A9
  Tel: 613-722-3033 ext. 243
  Toll-free: 1-800-461-4043

Host Your Own Vigil on October 4

The Native Women's Association of Canada (NWAC) is holding a vigil on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on October 4, 2006. NWAC, Amnesty International Canada, and KAIROS encourage you to show your support by hosting an annual Sisters in Spirit Vigil in your own town. This will help move toward the goal of a nationwide day of remembrance for our missing and murdered Aboriginal sisters.

How to Organize a Sisters in Spirit Vigil

A vigil is a wonderful way for a group to gather in solidarity with those affected to share and express their common concern through prayer, music, and dialogue while raising awareness of the issue.

1. Start now!
2. Call your city hall or local police department and find out if you need a permit to host your event.
3. Make a poster and publicize your event. E-mail it to all your contacts.
4. Announce the vigil in church and contact community members, local press, and schools. Try to reach as broad an audience as possible.
5. Call NWAC and tell them about your event before Oct 4. Make sure you take pictures and send them to NWAC after the event.
6. Educate those that come to your vigil. Ask NWAC for copies of the Sisters in Spirit brochure and Amnesty International's "Stolen Sisters" report.

Materials to support your event, including stickers, buttons, pins, and T-shirts can be ordered through NWAC.

Remember and Educate

Set aside time on October 4 for prayer and reflection. See excerpts from the United Church's "From Lament to Response" for worship ideas.

Use the United Church From Lament to Response congregational kit to educate yourself about the root causes of violence against Aboriginal women (see below). Invite a speaker to address these issues for your church, women's group, or community.

Find out about missing Aboriginal women in your area. Contact Native Women's Association of Canada regional groups or your local Native Friendship Centre for information and ideas about how to support the families of missing women.

Educate yourself about the root causes of violence against Aboriginal women. Invite a speaker to address these issues for your church, women's group, or community.

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Background

Over the past 20 years, approximately 500 Aboriginal women have gone missing in communities across Canada. Yet government, the media, and Canadian society continue to remain silent.

In Vancouver, more than 50 women went missing in that city's Downtown Eastside. Sixty percent were Aboriginal, and most were young. These were poor women involved in the sex trade. They struggled with drugs and alcohol. Some suffered from the effects of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, and many were victims of childhood sexual abuse. Every one of them grew up in a foster home. In other words, their lives bore all of the markings of the violence of colonization.

But these women also had families, hopes, dreams. They left behind grieving communities-grandmothers, mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers, and sadly, young children of their own. These young women had belonged somewhere and were loved.

Questions remain. Why didn't the police react sooner-especially when it was common knowledge on the street that women who went to the Port Coquitlam pig farm, did not return? When they were reported missing, why did the investigators focus on their lifestyles-as if to suggest that they somehow deserved what they got? And why is so little attention given to the reasons why Aboriginal women live such lives?

In Vancouver, no bodies of the missing women have been found. But even when bodies are found, there is little effort to find the killers and to bring them to justice. Many disappearances and deaths of Aboriginal women simply go unreported.

In Canada, Aboriginal women continue to be targets of hatred and violence based on their gender and their race. They continue to be objectified, disrespected, dishonoured, ignored and killed, often with impunity.

Sisters in Spirit is a campaign to right this deeply rooted wrong and to bring honour and respect back to our Sisters in Spirit who have gone missing and been brutally murdered. Now is the time to take concrete steps to ensure that the lives of Aboriginal women in Canada are no longer treated as disposable. Join the spirit of our sisters, and take action today!

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Resources

Posters are available for distribution to all United Church congregations. Please post one on your church bulletin board.

To order posters, please contact:

• Peggy Monague
  Healing Programs Coordinator, Aboriginal Ministries Circle
  Tel: 416-231-7680 ext. 4485
  E-mail: Peggy Monague

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Additional Information

Further information is available at www.sistersinspirit.ca*

United Church contact:

• Peggy Monague
  Healing Programs Coordinator, Aboriginal Ministries Circle
  The United Church of Canada
  3250 Bloor St. West, Suite 300
  Toronto, ON M8X 2Y4
  Tel: 416-231-5931 ext. 4485
  E-mail: Peggy Monague

For more information, please contact:

• Native Women's Association of Canada
  1292 Wellington St.
  Ottawa, ON K1Y 3A9
  Tel: 613-722-3033
  Fax: 613-722-7687
  Web: www.nwac-hq.org*