Vigil calls for inquiry into missing aboriginal women

Dozens of people gathered in Halifax to call for a public inquiry into the missing aboriginal women in Nova Scotia as part of the seventh annual Sisters in Spirit vigil.

About 50 men and women from varying backgrounds attended the vigil on Thursday night, reported the CBC's Anjuli Patil.

They marched from the Mi'kmaq Friendship Centre on Gottingen Street to Grand Parade in front of City Hall, where nearby roadwork threatened to drown out the vigil.

Despite the disruptions, the members lit candles to remember the hundreds of aboriginal women across the country who have gone missing or have been murdered since 1990.

The Native Women's Association of Canada believes more than 600 aboriginal women have gone missing or have been murdered in the past two decades, and it believes there may be many more.

"I pray for my sisters all the time in the sweat lodge, every single time I'm in there, that they're protected and safe," Rebecca Moore told the crowd.

The marchers called on the provincial and federal governments to do more to aboriginal women who have disappeared.

"Blame it on the social issues, right? 'Oh, they got out and it's their first time off the reserve, maybe they got carried away at a party. Maybe we'll wait a couple of weeks to look for them,'" said David Ladouceur.

"That couple of weeks stretches out."

Barbara Akoak shared her experiences living in Nunavut.

"I'm very vulnerable, I'm a young woman and aboriginal women are taught to be very forgiving," she said.

"I used to be in the cadet program during my youth and we went out to a couple of bars and just by men seeing me and they know I'm aboriginal, they ask me, 'Oh, how do you make your money, what do you do?' I tell them I work, I have a job and they say, 'Oh so you don't work the street?'"

Cheryl Maloney said she wants all levels of government to get involved.

"This is a Canadian problem. There's no safe streets in Canada for an aboriginal girl. That's scary," she said.

The annual vigil is part of the National Day of Remembrance for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and is marked across the country every year on Oct. 4.