Forgotten Sisters: Canada’s Silent Epidemic

Erin McGrath-Gaudet

When the news broke about the Vancouver police sealing off Robert Pickton’s Coquitlum, B.C. pig farm searching for bodies of more then 50 missing women from the Vancouver area, I was immediately glued to the news.  In the weeks and months that followed, the number of murder charges against Pickton grew to 27.  For 19 years, Pickton took women from Vancouver’s East side and murdered them.  Few people noticed.   Pickton’s pigfarm is an excellent example of how vulnerable populations are easy targets for the worst kinds of violence.

What has not been widely publicized is that half of Pickton’s victims are believed to be aboriginal or Métis women.   Sadly, his victims barely scratch the surface of the extraordinary number of aboriginal and Métis women who have gone missing or been murdered in Canada in recent years. 

The Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC) estimates that more than 500 aboriginal women have gone missing in Canada over the past fifteen years.  This number is astronomical considering that native people have represented only about 3 percent of the population over this time.  Aboriginal women are also five times more likely to die as a result of violence than any other group of Canadian women.

In a time when the disappearances of people like 9 year-old Cecilia Zhang in Toronto, Ontario and pregnant 29 year-old Liana White in Edmonton, Alberta dominated news stories nationally, how could the disappearances of so many women be overlooked? It is clear that this is a serious and real issue.  So where is the concern?

In many of these cases the lack of public concern can be attributed to the fact that these women have few real ties to society.  They are transients and homeless and often have addictions to drugs and alcohol.  Many turn to prostitution to support themselves.  In short, they live lifestyles which are prone to violence and have few people who would notice them missing.

While this explains why many may have gone unnoticed, it is not the case for many missing and murdered aboriginal women. 

Helen Betty Osborne was a 19-year-old Cree student from northern Manitoba who wanted to become a teacher. On November 12, 1971, she was abducted in the town of The Pas, Manitoba by four white men.  She was sexually assaulted and brutally murdered.  It took 16 years for charges to be laid and even then only one of the men was convicted.

In 1994, two 15-year old aboriginal girls, Roxanna Thiara and Alishia Germaine, were found murdered in Prince George, B.C.. The body of a third girl, Ramona Wilson, who disappeared that same year, was found in Smithers, B.C. in April 1995. In 2002, a 26-year old white woman, Nicola Hoar, disappeared while hitchhiking along a road connecting Prince George and Smithers.  The media then began to focus in on the other unsolved murders and disappearances along this stretch of highway, now dubbed “the highway of tears.”

On July 6, 2004, five-year old Tamra Keepness was reported missing from her Regina, Saskatchewan home.  Three adults were in her home that night: Tamra’s mother, her stepfather, and a friend of her step-father.  All three were drinking and all three had been absent for at least part of the night.  When Tamra didn’t come for breakfast, the police were called.  Tamra’s case actually received a significant amount of coverage in the media.  Perhaps her young age has afforded her the perception of innocence that is often lost in the cases of many missing teenage and adult women who are seen to have contributed to their disappearances or deaths through risky behaviours. However, despite this media coverage the police still have no leads on where Tamra is.

These are just three cases of missing and murdered aboriginal women and girls.  There are many others.  Some have suffered at the hands of their husbands, common-law partners, or boyfriends.  Some have been hurt by strangers.  Many have disappeared or been found with few leads as to who abducted or murdered them and after years their cases remain unsolved.

We hold so many stereotypes of these women –that they must have runaway, that they are addicted to drugs or alcohol, that they have gotten themselves into trouble—that it has become easy us to ignore their plight.  With every aboriginal woman that goes missing without people looking for her, with every aboriginal woman who is abducted or murdered without someone trying to find out what happened, with every untried or acquitted kidnapper, murderer, and rapist of aboriginal women, we, as a society, send a clear message to those who would hurt them that it is all right to do so.  It is clearly time that society as a whole recognize the role our apathy towards these women is playing and begin sending the message that these women have value and deserve protection.

For more information, please visit the Sisters in Spirit Campaign and Amnesty International Canada Stolen Sisters.