INTRODUCTION
On December 8, 2015, the new Liberal government under Justin Trudeau announced plans to spend $40 M for a national inquiry into MMIW starting in spring 2016.
This announcement goes hand in hand with another one: the CBC archive has been updated to add 22 new cases of MMIW.
read more here: http://www.cbc.ca/news/aboriginal/22-cases-added-to-cbc-s-missing-and-murdered-indigenous-women-database-1.3355012
In August 2014, in response to the death of Tina Lafontaine, a 15-year-old Aboriginal girl, the Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper said, of missing and murdered Aboriginal women: "We should not view this as a sociological phenomenon. We should view it as a crime."
"We should not view this as a sociological phenomenon. We should view it as a crime."
Prime Minister Stephen Harper made this statement on the issue of missing and murdered aboriginal women in August 2014, in response to the death of 15-year-old Tina Fontaine.
This statement is indicative of an ignorance of historical evidence and analysis. Looking at various cases of missing and murdered Aboriginal women throughout Canada, we will be arguing that the issue has been addressed inadequately by the Canadian government, law enforcement and the media. This problematic disparity has lead to less public pressure put on these institutions to address the problems and thus, the cycle repeats. Only in recently has there been a surge of media attention to this issue, but we will prove is that the issue is a historical and a sociological one and must be treated retroactively as such.
STATISTICS
To better understand the gravity of this situation, let's begin with examining statistics compiled by the Canadian RCMP and Statistics Canada.
I. The Report
On May 9, 2014, the RCMP released a report titled “Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women: A National Operational Overview”. The 22 page report was summed up in five statements:
Figures that detail the number of all missing women in Canada show that Aboriginal women make up 11.3% of this list alone. Figures detailing homicides in Canada number Aboriginal women as 1017 of the 6551 murders that took place against women from 1980 to 2012. This means that Aboriginal women make up 16% of female homicides from 1980 to 2012. Figures show that while the rate of non-Aboriginal homicides has been in decline from 1980 to 2012, the rate of Aboriginal homicides has remained relatively constant:
“Aboriginal women accounted for 8% of female victims in 1984 as compared to 23% in 2012. The growing proportion of Aboriginal female homicides is a direct reflection of a decrease in non-Aboriginal female homicides.”2
Other telling statistics, such as that 32% of Aboriginal women die from physical beatings (as opposed to the 17% of non-Aboriginal) and that 39% of Aboriginal women’s killers intentionally meant to kill them (as opposed to the slightly lower 31% of non-Aboriginal women) speak once more to the higher rate of overall violence that Aboriginal women face.3
II. Homicide Solve Rates
RCMP statistics on the homicide solve rates between Aboriginal and Non-Aboriginal only add to the statistical patterns we've seen throughout the report so far. From 1980 to 2012, solve rates for Aboriginal and Non-Aboriginal female victims have hovered close to one another. And while the report didn't provide an average solve rate between the two groups from 1980 to 2012, from the data below we can recognize that the solve rates for Non-Aboriginal women were higher in nine out of thirteen provinces and territories. In three out of the thirteen provinces/territories, they were higher for Aboriginal women, and in one province they were the same for both groups.
III. Risky Living
In a section titled “Understanding certain risk factors of murdered Aboriginal females”, the report, careful to specify that the information in this section isn't about laying blame, outlines the ways in which Aboriginal women are overwhelmingly more vulnerable to ways of life that bring them closer to drug use, violence, unemployment and illegal activities.
The unemployment rate of Aboriginal women is 40%, more than double the 16% unemployment rate of non-Aboriginal women.
18% of Aboriginal women (versus the 8% of non-Aboriginal women) support themselves through illegal means, and 23% of Aboriginal women (versus the 9% of non-Aboriginal) are on some form of social assistance of disability insurance. The report cites that these numbers are “in line” with data taken from the 2006 census about the Aboriginal population in Canada.
A startling 63% of Aboriginal women were found to have consumed alcohol and/or drugs before incidents occurred. This number is triple the 20% statistic of non-Aboriginal women.4
IV. Summary
Very few statistics throughout this report are in favour of Aboriginal women. Even by the slightest margin, it is almost always Canada's non-Aboriginal population that comes out on top. So what are the reasons for these discrepancies? And why are these numbers so significant?
When we take into account that the Aboriginal populations of Canada make up less than 3% of Canada's overall population, it is immediately obvious to see that number of missing and murdered Aboriginal women is disproportionate to the size of their population. It is without question that Aboriginal women are finding themselves in day-to-day situations that are more dangerous and more likely to end in violence than non-Aboriginal women. This is also a lens that we must critically consider when examining the questions surrounding these women.
In a Statistics Canada report titled “Women in Canada: A Gender-based Statistical Report”, studies showed that in 2006, 86% of Aboriginal women over the age of 15 lived with their immediate or extended family.5 The report also found that Aboriginal women were more likely to become single parents (18% versus the non-Aboriginal 8%), teen parents (8% of Aboriginal teen girls age 15-19 versus the non-Aboriginal 1.3%), and had higher fertility rates overall.6 The study also examined housing situations and determined that high numbers of Aboriginal women were residing in homes that were considered “crowded dwellings” or homes that were in need of major repairs. In Nunavut, the 2009/2010 Nunavut Housing Needs Survey found that 49% of homes in Nunavut were over-crowed and/or were in need of major repairs.7
If 90% of Aboriginal women who experienced violence against them were acquaintances with or relatives of their abusers, then it's clear that these women are growing up surrounded by problematic amounts of violence as well as violence within their communities. If Aboriginal girls are growing up in households that are considered crowded dwellings and/or are in need of majors repairs, then they are growing up in environments that are detrimental to their overall health and safety. If the unemployment rate of Aboriginal women is 40%, more than double the 16% unemployment rate of non-Aboriginal women, then Aboriginal women are not being given proper access to the tools they need to obtain the jobs they want. The conditions that Aboriginal women in Canada are growing up in are not adequate. This is not the fault of Aboriginal Communities. A long and painful history of mistreatment of the Aboriginal groups in Canada by the Canadian Government has placed these groups in the highly problematic situation they face today.
While Harper ignorantly argues that the murders and disappearances of Aboriginal women can't be considered sociological phenomenons, we argue that the sociological patterns are clear. Not only can they be found in the cases of Aboriginal women, but also in the behaviours and decisions of the federal government. The government's policies of doing as little as possible for as long as possible in regards to their “native problem” continually repeats itself in the treatment of the Aboriginal groups in Canada. We hope that by studying the information we have provided, the government's patterns of mistreatment will become clear to the readers of this website.
1 http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/pubs/mmaw-faapd-eng.pdf.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/89-503-x/2010001/article/11442-eng.pdf.
7 Ibid.
On December 8, 2015, the new Liberal government under Justin Trudeau announced plans to spend $40 M for a national inquiry into MMIW starting in spring 2016.
This announcement goes hand in hand with another one: the CBC archive has been updated to add 22 new cases of MMIW.
read more here: http://www.cbc.ca/news/aboriginal/22-cases-added-to-cbc-s-missing-and-murdered-indigenous-women-database-1.3355012
In August 2014, in response to the death of Tina Lafontaine, a 15-year-old Aboriginal girl, the Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper said, of missing and murdered Aboriginal women: "We should not view this as a sociological phenomenon. We should view it as a crime."
"We should not view this as a sociological phenomenon. We should view it as a crime."
Prime Minister Stephen Harper made this statement on the issue of missing and murdered aboriginal women in August 2014, in response to the death of 15-year-old Tina Fontaine.
This statement is indicative of an ignorance of historical evidence and analysis. Looking at various cases of missing and murdered Aboriginal women throughout Canada, we will be arguing that the issue has been addressed inadequately by the Canadian government, law enforcement and the media. This problematic disparity has lead to less public pressure put on these institutions to address the problems and thus, the cycle repeats. Only in recently has there been a surge of media attention to this issue, but we will prove is that the issue is a historical and a sociological one and must be treated retroactively as such.
STATISTICS
To better understand the gravity of this situation, let's begin with examining statistics compiled by the Canadian RCMP and Statistics Canada.
I. The Report
On May 9, 2014, the RCMP released a report titled “Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women: A National Operational Overview”. The 22 page report was summed up in five statements:
- Police-recorded incidents of Aboriginal female homicides and unresolved missing Aboriginal females in this review total 1,181 - 164 missing and 1,017 homicide victims.
- There are 225 unsolved cases of either missing or murdered Aboriginal females: 105 missing for more than 30 days as of November 4, 2013, whose cause of disappearance was categorized at the time as “unknown” or “foul play suspected” and 120 unsolved homicides between 1980 and 2012.
- The total indicates that Aboriginal women are over-represented among Canada’s murdered and missing women.
- There are similarities across all female homicides. Most homicides were committed by men and most of the perpetrators knew their victims — whether as an acquaintance or a spouse.
Figures that detail the number of all missing women in Canada show that Aboriginal women make up 11.3% of this list alone. Figures detailing homicides in Canada number Aboriginal women as 1017 of the 6551 murders that took place against women from 1980 to 2012. This means that Aboriginal women make up 16% of female homicides from 1980 to 2012. Figures show that while the rate of non-Aboriginal homicides has been in decline from 1980 to 2012, the rate of Aboriginal homicides has remained relatively constant:
“Aboriginal women accounted for 8% of female victims in 1984 as compared to 23% in 2012. The growing proportion of Aboriginal female homicides is a direct reflection of a decrease in non-Aboriginal female homicides.”2
Other telling statistics, such as that 32% of Aboriginal women die from physical beatings (as opposed to the 17% of non-Aboriginal) and that 39% of Aboriginal women’s killers intentionally meant to kill them (as opposed to the slightly lower 31% of non-Aboriginal women) speak once more to the higher rate of overall violence that Aboriginal women face.3
II. Homicide Solve Rates
RCMP statistics on the homicide solve rates between Aboriginal and Non-Aboriginal only add to the statistical patterns we've seen throughout the report so far. From 1980 to 2012, solve rates for Aboriginal and Non-Aboriginal female victims have hovered close to one another. And while the report didn't provide an average solve rate between the two groups from 1980 to 2012, from the data below we can recognize that the solve rates for Non-Aboriginal women were higher in nine out of thirteen provinces and territories. In three out of the thirteen provinces/territories, they were higher for Aboriginal women, and in one province they were the same for both groups.
III. Risky Living
In a section titled “Understanding certain risk factors of murdered Aboriginal females”, the report, careful to specify that the information in this section isn't about laying blame, outlines the ways in which Aboriginal women are overwhelmingly more vulnerable to ways of life that bring them closer to drug use, violence, unemployment and illegal activities.
The unemployment rate of Aboriginal women is 40%, more than double the 16% unemployment rate of non-Aboriginal women.
18% of Aboriginal women (versus the 8% of non-Aboriginal women) support themselves through illegal means, and 23% of Aboriginal women (versus the 9% of non-Aboriginal) are on some form of social assistance of disability insurance. The report cites that these numbers are “in line” with data taken from the 2006 census about the Aboriginal population in Canada.
A startling 63% of Aboriginal women were found to have consumed alcohol and/or drugs before incidents occurred. This number is triple the 20% statistic of non-Aboriginal women.4
IV. Summary
Very few statistics throughout this report are in favour of Aboriginal women. Even by the slightest margin, it is almost always Canada's non-Aboriginal population that comes out on top. So what are the reasons for these discrepancies? And why are these numbers so significant?
When we take into account that the Aboriginal populations of Canada make up less than 3% of Canada's overall population, it is immediately obvious to see that number of missing and murdered Aboriginal women is disproportionate to the size of their population. It is without question that Aboriginal women are finding themselves in day-to-day situations that are more dangerous and more likely to end in violence than non-Aboriginal women. This is also a lens that we must critically consider when examining the questions surrounding these women.
In a Statistics Canada report titled “Women in Canada: A Gender-based Statistical Report”, studies showed that in 2006, 86% of Aboriginal women over the age of 15 lived with their immediate or extended family.5 The report also found that Aboriginal women were more likely to become single parents (18% versus the non-Aboriginal 8%), teen parents (8% of Aboriginal teen girls age 15-19 versus the non-Aboriginal 1.3%), and had higher fertility rates overall.6 The study also examined housing situations and determined that high numbers of Aboriginal women were residing in homes that were considered “crowded dwellings” or homes that were in need of major repairs. In Nunavut, the 2009/2010 Nunavut Housing Needs Survey found that 49% of homes in Nunavut were over-crowed and/or were in need of major repairs.7
If 90% of Aboriginal women who experienced violence against them were acquaintances with or relatives of their abusers, then it's clear that these women are growing up surrounded by problematic amounts of violence as well as violence within their communities. If Aboriginal girls are growing up in households that are considered crowded dwellings and/or are in need of majors repairs, then they are growing up in environments that are detrimental to their overall health and safety. If the unemployment rate of Aboriginal women is 40%, more than double the 16% unemployment rate of non-Aboriginal women, then Aboriginal women are not being given proper access to the tools they need to obtain the jobs they want. The conditions that Aboriginal women in Canada are growing up in are not adequate. This is not the fault of Aboriginal Communities. A long and painful history of mistreatment of the Aboriginal groups in Canada by the Canadian Government has placed these groups in the highly problematic situation they face today.
While Harper ignorantly argues that the murders and disappearances of Aboriginal women can't be considered sociological phenomenons, we argue that the sociological patterns are clear. Not only can they be found in the cases of Aboriginal women, but also in the behaviours and decisions of the federal government. The government's policies of doing as little as possible for as long as possible in regards to their “native problem” continually repeats itself in the treatment of the Aboriginal groups in Canada. We hope that by studying the information we have provided, the government's patterns of mistreatment will become clear to the readers of this website.
1 http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/pubs/mmaw-faapd-eng.pdf.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/89-503-x/2010001/article/11442-eng.pdf.
7 Ibid.