Justice for Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women, Montreal

Mar 17, 2009

Justice for Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women, Montreal

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Talk begins at 6min 50sec into the clip.
Discussion of violence against women begins at 29min.

Justice for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (Panel Discussion)

The aim of this event is to stimulate a broader understanding of and
discussion about the reasons behind racialized violence that continues
to occur both locally here in Montreal and in the rest of Canada. The
general lack of information or proper coverage, as well as an absence
of police investigations of missing and murdered First Nations women
over the last three decades alone will also be explored as a brutal
form of violence in itself, and raised as a cause for concern. The
more long-term aim of the initiative will be to pressure the
government to stop ignoring recommendations by the UN and Amnesty
International, including a request by the UN committee on the
elimination of discrimination against women to "urgently carry out
thorough investigations" to trace how and why the justice system has
failed, and why hundred's of women's cases remain unsolved.

Beverley Jacobs, of the Mohawk Nation Bear Clan in Six Nations Grand
River is an Aboriginal rights lawyer and president of the Native
Women's Association of Canada (NWAC). She has worked with Amnesty
International Canada as a lead researcher and consultant on their
report "Stolen Sisters: Discrimination and Violence Against Indigenous
Women in Canada," as has done work on NWAC's "Sisters in Spirit"
campaign. Jacobs was one of many attendees at the Walk4Justice rally
on Parliament Hill in September 2008. The rally was the end of a
90-day walk by First Nations women and men aimed at pressuring the
government and sharing personal experiences as a way of raising
awareness.

Since September, four First Nations women have gone missing locally,
including a fourteen-year old Inuit girl who was abducted from a
schoolyard in Montreal. This event will offer an important opportunity
for students, as well as the broader Montreal community, to think
about the issues and get involved in a more concrete way by learning
to hold their government accountable for the profound systemic flaws
that continue to victimize a particular sector of the population.

This event is brought to you by the Justice for Murdered and Missing
Women campaign in collaboration with the 2110 Centre for
Gender Advocacy. Both events are co-sponsored by the Simone de
Beauvoire Institute, The Quebec Public Interest Research Group
(QPIRG-Concordia), The Women Studies Student Association of Concordia
(WSSA) & CKUT 90.FM.

For pictures of the Panel Discussion on March 17th, look here: http://www.mediacoop.ca/photo/1277