No More Silence: Panel discussion on murdered and missing aboriginal women

On June 21st, National Aboriginal Day, Michael hosted a panel of distinguished First Nations women at the Appel Salon at the Toronto Public Library in Toronto.

The panellists were:

Deborah Richardson-Goulais, Ontario's Deputy Minister of Aboriginal Affairs. She is a member of Pabineau First Nation.

Angela Sterritt, an award-winning Gitxsan journalist, artist, and filmmaker from British Columbia. The missing and murdered women have been a central theme in her work, and much of her visual art.

And Audrey Huntley, co-founder of "No More Silence", an advocacy group which raises awareness about missing and murdered Aboriginal women. In 2006 she travelled across Canada meeting the families of murdered and missing women. She recently spoke to the Nobel Women's Initiative Conference on Women's Rights, in the Hague.

Between 1980 and 2014, one thousand, two hundred and thirteen First Nations women were murdered or simply disappeared in Canada - an average of just over 40 women a year. But that raw number tells only part of the story. Behind the numbers are families - of sisters, wives, daughters, and mothers.

There are no numbers which can comprehend the pain of those families. And there are no numbers which can describe the thousands of Aboriginal women who live in fear for their lives on our reserves and on the streets of our cities … a fear that claws at them almost daily.

And that is nothing less than a national disgrace and a national tragedy.

This week, the Alberta government joined the Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Residential Schools, in calling for a national inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women. Also, the RCMP released a report concluding that aboriginal women are most frequently killed by someone they know.