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February 14th in Toronto – Ceremony as an Act of Sovereignty

Feb 11, 2013 | Battered Women's Support Services, Indigenous Women, Missing Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, Missing Women

February 14th in Toronto – Ceremony as an Act of Sovereignty

by Audrey Huntley

Audrey is of mixed settler (German/Scottish/Irish) and Indigenous (Anishnawbe) ancestry

No More Silence, a group founded in 2004 of allies and Indigenous women that aims to develop an inter/national network to support the work being done by activists, academics, researchers, agencies and communities to stop the murders and disappearances of Indigenous women, held Toronto’s 1st Annual February 14th Memorial for Missing and Murdered women in 2006. The Picton trial had just begun a month earlier and we had an urgent need to express our solidarity with the community of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and the family members of the women killed on the farm.

Our first call out stated: “On February 14th we will come together in solidarity with the women who started this vigil 15 years ago in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, and with the marches and rallies that will be taking place across this land. We stand in defense of our lives and to demonstrate against the complicity of the state in the ongoing genocide of Indigenous women and the impunity of state institutions and actors (police, RCMP, coroners’ offices, the courts, and an indifferent federal government) that prevents justice for all Indigenous peoples. “

We choose to come together at police headquarters in order to highlight the impunity that Canada affords killers of poor and marginalized women – women not deemed worthy of state protection and Indigenous women targets of the genocidal policies inherent to a settler state. We do not ask for the state’s permission in doing so and instead honour the sovereignty of the Indigenous peoples that have shared the caretaking responsibilities of this land for thousands of years. Family members are given the opportunity to share and Wanda Whitebird (Bear Clan and member of the Mi’kmag Nation) leads the community in a strawberry and water ceremony. No More Silence chooses to practice ceremony in honouring our missing sisters both as an act of love for those who are gone and those who remain behind to mourn as well as an assertion of sovereignty. It is the group’s understanding that settler violence against Indigenous women is inherent to ongoing colonization and land theft. Indigenous women who are at the centre of our communities have always presented an obstacle to the colonial project as evidenced currently in their leadership of Idle No More.

Coming together as allies and Indigenous women No More Silence seeks to practice a decolonizing solidarity that we believe will be fundamental in shifting the power dynamics governing this land. This is why we look to ancient wisdoms such as the teachings of the Three Sisters in shaping how we work together for a better future – one that will honour all our relations and protect our mother – the land.

~ The Three Sisters ~

Once, Native people of this land were starving.

Then Three Sky Sisters came to live with them: Corn, Squash and Bean

Corn stood tall and straight in the fields around the village. Squash laid herself at Corn’s feet and protected her sister by keeping the soil moist. The third Sister, Bean, could make her own nourishment from the soil. But she was so weak and thin she could not support herself. So corn supported Bean as she grew up towards the sun, and soon they were all growing strongly together.

The people learned not only to plant the Three Sisters in the same soil, but also to work together and support each other.


Eight years later in 2013 No More Silence is joined by the Native Youth Sexual Health Network, Sistering and Camp Sis in our organizing. NaMeRes (Native Men’s Residence) staff will provide the food, cook and serve the feast following the ceremony.

Numerous Toronto organizations and agencies have endorsed the event including: Native Women’s Resource Centre, Anduhyaun Native Women’s Shelter, Aboriginal Student Association at York (ASAY), Ontario Aboriginal HIV Strategy, Ontario Federation of Labour, International Women’s Day Toronto Committee, Muskrat Magazine, Toronto Rape Crisis Centre/Multicultural Women Against Rape (TTRC/MWAR), Gathering Weavers, Christian Peacemaker Teams- Aboriginal Justice Team, Canadian Chiapanecas Justice for Women, Maggie’s Toronto Sex Workers Action Project, Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP), Metro Action Committee Against Violence Against Women and Children (METRAC), Indigenous Sovereignty and Solidarity Network, The Redwood Shelter, CUPE local 1281, Women and Gender Studies Institute at U of T (WGSI), International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN), International Socialists, Health for All, Toronto New Socialists, Noone Is Illegal (NOII), Communist Party of Canada, Centre for Women and Trans at U of T CWTP, Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid, OPIRG Toronto and Students against Israeli Apartheid U of T, Educators for Peace and Justice (EPJ) & Rank and File Education Workers of Toronto (REWT), Canadian Coalition Against the Death Penalty, Rising Tide, United Jewish People’s Order-Toronto and the UJPO Social Justice Committee, Elementary School Teachers of Toronto (ETT), Sam Ginden Chair in Social Justice and Democracy Ryerson University.

Photographs by John Bonnar, Blogger and Podcaster at Rabble.ca

Sixteen cities and communities are now confirmed for Feb 14th Women’s Memorial Marches

National Co-ordination

22nd Annual Feb 14th Women’s Memorial March

Jan 29, 2013 | Battered Women's Support Services, Events, Missing Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls

22nd Annual February 14th Women’s Memorial March – Downtown Eastside Vancouver

Our team is preparing for the 22nd Annual February 14th Women’s Memorial March Downtown Eastside Vancouver. With one heart we connect with at least eleven other Women’s Memorial Marches being held across the land. Established to remember and mourn women who are missing and women who have been murdered as a result of violence and oppression. We ask that you join us this Feb. 14th at 11 am at Hastings and Main in Vancouver, Coast Salish Territory to honour their lives and support the families who are missing their loved ones.

Thursday Feb 14th

March starts at noon from Carnegie (Main and Hastings)

* Please NOTE that this year the march starts one hour earlier *

The first women’s memorial march was held in 1991 in response to the murder of a Coast Salish woman on Powell Street in Vancouver. Her name is not spoken today out of respect for the wishes of her family. Out of this sense of hopelessness and anger came an annual march on Valentine’s Day to express compassion, community, and caring for all women in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, Unceded Coast Salish Territories. Twenty two years later, the women’s memorial march continues to honour the lives of missing and murdered women.

On Thursday Feb 14th 2013, we will gather at 11 am at the Carnegie Community Centre Theatre, 401 Main Street (corner Hastings, Vancouver) where family members speak in remembrance. Given space constraints, we ask the broader public to join us at noon, when the march takes to the streets and proceeds through the Downtown Eastside, with stops to commemorate where women were last seen or found; speeches by community activists at the court house; a healing circle at Oppenheimer Park around 2:30; and finally a community feast at the Japanese Language Hall.

Increasing deaths of many vulnerable women from the DTES still leaves family, friends, loved ones, and community members with an overwhelming sense of grief and loss. This year, the Women’s Memorial March occurs in the context of the provincial missing women’s inquiry, which marginalized the voices and experiences of DTES residents, Indigenous communities, and women’s groups. Women continue to go missing or be murdered with no action from any level of government to address these tragedies or the systemic nature of gendered violence, poverty, racism, or colonialism. We are calling for a national public inquiry and continue to seek justice internationally with submissions at the level of the UN.

This event is organized and led by women in the DTES because women – especially Indigenous women – face physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual violence on a daily basis. The February 14th Women’s Memorial March is an opportunity to come together to grieve the loss of our beloved sisters, remember the women who are still missing, and to dedicate ourselves to justice.

* SUPPORT THE WOMEN’S MEMORIAL MARCH

There are many ways to support the Feb 14th Women’s Memorial March:

1) Spread the word and join us (all genders welcome) to the Feb 14th march. We respectfully ask that you please do not bring your banners, flags, or leaflets as the Women’s Memorial March carries five banners only to honour the women.

2) Plan a memorial march in your community. Last year, memorial marches were held in approximately ten other cities and communities. If you are organizing a memorial march please email us the details at marlene.george@vancouver.ca so we can maintain
communication, compile the information on our website, and build strength in our coordinated efforts.

3) If you want to help volunteer (setup, cleanup, serving food etc) on the day of and can commit to 2-hour shifts between 8 am and 6 pm, please email brandy@bwss.org

Thank you all for your support and commitment, Feb 14th Women’s Memorial March Committee
Website:http://womensmemorialmarch.wordpress.com/
Phone: 604 665 3005
Email: marlene.george@vancouver.ca(Committee Chair Marlene George)
Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/events/488831777821558/?fref=ts

BLUEPRINT FOR AN INQUIRY

Nov 20, 2012 | Indigenous Women, Missing Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, Reports

Learning from the Failures of the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry

From the perspective of the hundreds of marginalized women who protested the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry (“the Inquiry”) every morning for the first month of hearings, the Inquiry was an absolute failure. This perspective is shared by the B.C. Civil Liberties  Association, Pivot Legal Society and West Coast LEAF, the human and democratic rights organizations that produced this report.

The Inquiry was set up to examine the problems arising from investigations of the disappearance and murder of dozens of women in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (“DTES”), and particularly the investigation of serial murderer Robert William Pickton. Out of the failures of the Inquiry, which are well documented and understood in the affected communities, the hope of the authors is that a positive legacy can still be uncovered.

If nothing else, this Inquiry demonstrates what should not be done in conducting a public inquiry involving marginalized communities. It therefore functions as a useful lesson for similar inquiries in the future, no matter where they take place. This report does not focus on the nuances of B.C. provincial law, but instead on broad trends and procedural approaches that future commissioners of inquiry and their staff may usefully adapt to the particularities of their own jurisdictions.

If there were only one recommendation to come from this report, it would be that commissions of inquiry that intend to work with marginalized populations as witnesses, or inquiries that are called in response to the concerns of marginalized communities, must consult thoroughly at every stage with those communities and the organizations that work with those communities.

Consultation and Collaboration: Voices of the community excluded

The Inquiry excluded the voices of individuals and communities that it should have worked the hardest to include: Aboriginal women, sex workers, women who use drugs, and women living in poverty who were most affected by the Pickton murders and the resulting investigations, and who remain at extremely high risk for violence.

The Commission repeated the very mistakes that led to serial murderer Robert Pickton being able to operate with impunity in the first place – the voices of marginalized women were shoved aside while the “professional” opinions of police and government officials took centre stage. The focus of the Inquiry was directed away from systemic issues, targeting instead individual participants in the system who may not have fulfilled their job requirements as expected.

Please see the report on the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry.

New report critical of Missing Women Inquiry issued weeks before Inquiry’s deadline

Nov 18, 2012 | Battered Women's Support Services, Media Advisory, Missing Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, Reports

New report critical of Missing Women Inquiry issued weeks before Inquiry’s deadline

Media Advisory, November 18, 2012

Vancouver- A new report on the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry (MWCI) will released on Monday morning by three leading BC human rights organizations just weeks before the Inquiry’s Commissioner delivers his final report to the Attorney General of BC at the end of this month.

What:
Release of report on the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry by B.C.
Civil Liberties Association, Pivot Legal Society and West Coast LEAF

Where:
Carnegie Centre Theatre, 401 Main Street, Vancouver (Main and
Hastings)

When:
Monday November 19, 10:00 a.m.

Who:
Kasari Govender, Executive Director, West Coast LEAF
Katrina Pacey, Litigation Director, Pivot Legal Society
Lindsay Lyster, President, BCCLA

For more information, please contact:
Katrina Pacey, Litigation Director, Pivot Legal Society – (604) 729-7849
Kasari Govender, Executive Director, West Coast LEAF – (604) 339-0202
Lindsay Lyster, President, BCCLA – (604) 689-4457

Please see the new report on the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry.

Bajo Juárez – The City that Devours its Daughters with Alejandra Sanchez and Beverley Jacobs–Photos

Sep 9, 2011 | Battered Women's Support Services, Indigenous Women, Missing Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls

Bajo Juárez – The City that Devours its Daughters with Alejandra Sanchez and Beverley Jacobs – Photos

 

Bajo Juarez_1

Mandy Nahanee

On September 8, 2011, Battered Women’s Support Services and Vancouver Latin American Film Festival co-hosted a special screening of Bajo Juárez – The City that Devours its Daughters, featuring Alejandra Sanchez the filmmaker and Beverley Jacobs former president Native Women’s Association of Canada. 

Over 120 people attended the screening held at W2 Media Cafe in Vancouver, BC.  We were joined by Mandy Nahanee and Rosa Elena Arteaga.  Here’s our blog with all the details of the event  Bajo Juarez – City that Devours its Daughters

 

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Mandy Nahanee

 

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(foreground)  Jesus Gonzalez and Esteban Gonzalez

 

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Bajo Juarez_8

Beverley Jacobs

 

Bajo Juarez_9

Beverley Jacobs

 

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Rosa Elena Arteaga and Alejandra Sanchez

 

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Rosa Elena Arteaga and Alejandra Sanchez

 

Bajo Juarez_13

Alejandra Sanchez

 

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Beverley Jacobs

 

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(front left) Sara Yassan

 

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(back left)  Annie Zhang

 

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Alejandra Sanchez

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Beverley Jacobs

 

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Alejandra Sanchez

Thank you Alejandro Gonzalez for these wonderful photographs!!

© photos by alex gonzalez, oaxaca studio, 2011

Royal Commission on Violence against Aboriginal Girls and Women

Apr 27, 2011 | Battered Women's Support Services, Indigenous Women, Missing Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls

In consultation with the University of Calgary Moot team and in preparation for the 2011 Kawaskimhon Moot held in Vancouver from March 5-7, 2011, Battered Women’s Support Services initiated a call for a Royal Commission on Violence against Aboriginal Girls and Women. A royal commission has the ability to address the historic, social, legal, economic, child welfare and political challenges facing Aboriginal girls and women across Canada, while recognizing that violence against Aboriginal girls and women is a grave national concern.

In order to redress systemic inequality and to eliminate this violence, BWSS stresses that there is a responsibility by all to address this issue. BWSS is recommending this Royal Commission on Violence Against Aboriginal Girls and Women not only to address the gaps and to address issues affecting Aboriginal women and girls, but to also make concrete and specific recommendations to end violence against Aboriginal women and girls at a national level.

Read the entire document here.