ShepherdsDog ShepherdsDog:
Where the majority of these crimes are taking place, FN and Metis populations are higher
$1:
The largest percentages of persons
identifying as Aboriginal
as a total of the population were
found in the territories (Nunavut
at 86.3%, Northwest Territories
at 51.9% and the Yukon at 23.1%),
followed by Manitoba (16.7%)
and Saskatchewan (15.6%).
Persons self-identifying as
Aboriginal represented less than
8% of the total population in the
remaining provinces.
I don't mean to be dense, but doesn't that make sense? Where the majority of crimes against aboriginal women occur, there are more aboriginal women against whom such crimes can be committed?
OnTheIce OnTheIce:
It's never the fault of aboriginal people. Even the mention is racist.
$1:
On the day of the first national roundtable on the issue of missing and murdered women in Ottawa, aboriginal women's leaders are taking issue with the federal government's suggestion that most of the deaths and disappearances are the result of domestic violence.
http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/blaming-ab ... -1.2256371I'm against an inquiry, but I would like to point out it is because we have a lot of these stats available, and it doesn't bare a direct causality implied by either side here. Aboriginal women were by far more likely (in the majority, actually, but quite a bit) to die in an urban environment, where natives are a significant minority. Few actually occurred on reserve (7% of missing cases and 13% of murder cases) and the remaining, in rural environments, have a creepy reminiscence of other situations where young women disappeared; truckers, farmers like Pickton and so forth. There is also some intergenerational issues with native children born off reserves, memory serves. The assertion that it's because of aboriginal men does seem to fall a bit more flat when this is kept in mind.
On the other hand, the Aboriginals at this round table are forgetting those same reports, some of which have pointed out that reserve conditions perpetuated, often by men, in fashions that harm women are direct causal links to such harms. Sure, education and poverty are definitely problems that can lead to these issues, but an endemic mistrust of institutions like schools that can solve these problems isn't going to fix these issues on the native side. Nor does it help that a lot of native-based institutions, including those meant to protect their children or sentencing circles, often fail, in some cases flagrantly, to deal with issues of abuse, assault, or other violent crimes against women, children and other vulnerable members of society. We cannot ignore a very male-dominated system harming women, and that even if they aren't committing the crimes they are creating an atmosphere which makes women vulnerable to them.
Fear of abuse (what the native groups forget) and a lack of opportunity on reserve (what both sides kind of minimalize) is why a lot of women leave, but they don't have the level of support in leaving that they need to make it. It's hard to move to the city with nothing, and there are a lot of studies indicating women are forced into criminal industries to survive. The end result is that a lot more dangerous people are in contact with these poor women, and a lot end up victims of sexual assault (sometimes the result of being in the sex trade). Further, living in a poor area of town and so forth almost always leads to a higher risk of death. It's an unfortunate reality in Canada still that being a woman pretty much means you are going to be poorer; it's even worse when you consider that natives in general are poorer and because of a lack of development lack of a lot of the skills needed to advance like their non-aboriginal neighbours. Stories of starlight rides and police abuse don't exactly encourage women to seek out police assistance either, or other government help.
Declaring this a white-on-aboriginal or a aboriginal-on-aboriginal crime problem hasn't yet be substantiated, as far as I know. Could it be? Sure. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a racial link one way or another, and that it is impacting why aboriginal women are being harmed. Racism sadly still is a thing, both on and off of reserves, by all involved. Othering is a human vice. However, it's not the only problem, by far, and understanding all the factors that lead to these murders and missing women allows us to solve more problems. In past inquests, there have been upwards of 100 recommendations on how to change things for the better as a result of murders. There are dozens of studies on the topics on how things need to be fixed. Some of it is on the native side, as papers point out problems with sentencing circles, rampant abuse, substance problems and a lack of trust in local institutions. Some of it is on the media side, with natives pointing out coverage of native death has always been passed by (like the Trail of Tears differences) as something almost foreign, while governments point out a lack of breadth in reporting issues, either pro- or anti-inquiry, both of which harm optics and understanding of the situation. Some of it is on the governmental side, including problems within police forces that bias against assisting natives in need, a dysfunctional set of native legislation (which, let's face it, we all hate anyway), and a lack of programs that will actually drive natives out of poverty. We spend surprisingly less than I thought a year ago on rural dwellers in general, let alone natives.
That last bit, though, is the big problem. I don't think we can expect 100% resolutions, or anywhere close to it, when you put reserves and native women origins in context. Even if they were indistinguishable from white persons in most stats, the reality of reserves in the backwoods, in rural areas, often great distances from the majority of urban centers out there, make them far more likely to be prone to problems and a lack of funding that doesn't exist within the urban sphere. Most of the problems that put native women in a bad situation in urban areas can begin in most rural areas at a higher level, inclusive of poverty and domestic abuse. As a result, dealing with this problem is going to take a lot of changes, because not only are these people aboriginal and disadvantaged, they are also women, which disadvantages them further, rural, even more disadvantages, and also in poverty, which disadvantages them even further. At least some of these changes would be positive ones for the population as a whole regardless of murdered women just to correct for those problems.
Round tables like this usually turn more into negotiations than anything. People come to the table with their truths (reality oriented or not) and their rhetoric and negotiate what the reality of the situation is. It's a place where media can report on what people say and it becomes a soapbox for everyone involved as a result. An inquiry, in my view, won't be much better; regardless of which party is in charge, a government run inquiry is almost always viewed through a political lens that will instantly lose it's credibility with a great many Canadians should the results turn out different from what they hoped. It also allows for us to be distracted by something that can take the better part of a decade rather than dealing with an issue, turning a racial group into a political wedge issue. Premiers can support it so they can appear to be on the forefront of the native portfolio; native leaders can support it to post-pone beginning changes recommended by their own governments; opposition parties get to appear as crusaders for the native cause without doing a great deal of work, committing a great deal of resources, or actually requiring tangible results from their endeavours for the native community. Finally, it provides us the capacity to ignore the studies, reports and inquests done so far, often by neutral or academic sources, who do provide a series of recommendations that we should probably be doing anyway, regardless of what it does for native women. At the end of the day, an inquiry is only a way for people to score some cheap political points out each other while forgetting the issue at large. All without any indication of whether or not there is the political will be either native or Canadian leaders to solve any outstanding issues that may arise.
All just my opinion, of course.
One of the many reports on the issue, this one by the RCMP.