Sisters In Spirit mark solemn vigil
Wynter Ducharme and daughter Rayne hold a placard as they attend the Sisters In Spirit prayer ceremony and vigil for missing and murdered aboriginal women on Monday at City Hall.
“I’ll bet you and I would be treated very differently if we walked into a grocery store,” says Josie Nepinak. “I might be followed around. I’d likely not receive the same courtesy as you would.”
Nepinak and I are women in the middle age of life, both well dressed and both educated with rewarding careers. It’s the colour of our skin, she says, that changes everything.
“I still hear, ‘ I hate you Indians,’ sometimes at a bus stop.”
It’s one other, even bigger difference between us that stands out when we make our acquaintance Monday morning on the steps of Calgary’s City Hall.
“I had an aunt back in 1978 who was murdered and her killer has never been found,” she says matter- of- factly of tragedy hitting so close to home. “And I have a cousin who in 2012 was murdered by serial killer Sean Lamb in Winnipeg.”
As the executive director of Calgary’s Awo Taan Healing Lodge Society, the only aboriginal women’s shelter in Alberta, Nepinak has spent the past 25 years promoting health and wellness for First Nations women and their families.
Once a year, though, her sole focus is on the more than 1,200 murdered and missing aboriginal women in Canada over the past three decades.
“We can never forget that there are thousands of murdered and missing women in our country,” says Nepinak, who argues that due to non- reporting, official police statistics gravely underestimate the numbers.
“On this day, we come together for a peaceful vigil and prayer ceremony, calling on our ancestors, our sisters, our grandmothers, to walk the earth with us today.”
For Calgary’s 11th annual Sisters in Spirit vigil and march, a nationwide initiative created by the Native Women’s Association of Canada and funded partially by the federal Status of Women department, more than 200 supporters converge on the steps of City Hall to join Nepinak.
From young mothers pushing strollers to the elderly in their wheelchairs, they represent life’s full spectrum. While the majority are First Nations women, scores of non- aboriginal women stand alongside them, while a few men have come out to show support.
Many hold placards with the photographs of the loved and lost, often with their names and ages; also, one can see scores of signs bearing such slogans as ‘ No More Violence, No More Hate,’ ‘ Shame on Harper’ and ‘ Canada Needs National Inquiry.’
“We’re asking to end racism, oppression, sexism,” says Nepinak of the political aspects of the annual gathering. “A national inquiry would certainly get to the root of the issue.”
Few would argue with the statistics highlighting the crisis facing the country when it comes to violence against aboriginal women and girls. According to Statistics Canada, aboriginal women 15 years and older are 3.5 times more likely to face violence than non- aboriginal women. Between 1997 and 2000, homicide rates among aboriginal females were almost seven times higher than those of non- aboriginal females.
It is a call that so far has gone unheeded from the federal government, Prime Minister Stephen Harper being recently quoted as saying an inquiry “isn’t really high on our radar.” He instead argues that tackling such issues as human rights and matrimonial rights and family violence prevention would be more effective than another “multi- milliondollar inquiry.”
Harper has his supporters: one top pundit described national inquiries as being more suited to the investigation of a single incident, rather than an issue that is complex, vast and has a wide variety of causes behind the violence.
Still, it’s a demand that is gaining steam across the country, with all provincial premiers throwing their support behind it, joined by Canada’s aboriginal organizations and the federal opposition leaders.
On this day, Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi reiterates his support and the support of city council.
“Violence against women in this country is a national disgrace; violence experienced by aboriginal women and girls in Canada is a national tragedy,” he says to cheers of support from the crowd. “It is shameful that we as Canadians allow this to happen ... ( an inquiry) is something that is important to everyone in this community.”
After joining in song to remember those missing and murdered, the crowd makes its way down Stephen Avenue, past the busy lunchtime crowd. They beat drums, hold up their signs, while a small but vocal minority of marchers yell out phrases like “Shame on you all!”
Still, its leader on this day remains soft- spoken but steady, determined to represent a cause that is not only political but also personal.
“We come together each October as a community,” she says. “This is not just an indigenous issue — this is one affecting us all as Canadians.”