16 Days of Activism
While not many people are aware that November 25 is the United Nations’ International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, the Native Women’s Association of Canada uses it to draw attention to the issue.
This year, NWAC used it as a springboard to kick off The 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence, an international campaign originating from the first Women’s Global Leadership Institute. The campaign runs from November 25 to December 10.
For NWAC’s Sisters in Spirit initiative, November 25 was an ideal time to draw attention to how much more vulnerable Aboriginal women are to violence than the rest of the general population.
“There is very much an Aboriginal face to violence and it’s just not something that is often talked about. Essentially all Canadians need to come together and not see this as a women’s issue or an Aboriginal issue, but as a human-rights issue,” said Kate Rexe, director of the Sisters in Spirit initiative.
Rexe said that she used the 16-day promotional campaign to carry out a number of activities such as holding brown-bag lunches with members of different branches of government to discuss what Sisters in Spirit does.
The initiative, which is now in its fifth year, has not only created Canada’s only database to track the over 520 missing and/or murdered Aboriginal women in Canada, but has worked closely with their families and also lobbied for more to be done about the situation nationally.
As part of the 16-day campaign, Rexe also spoke at an Ottawa vigil for the 14 women who died in the infamous Montreal École Polytechnique Massacre, where Marc Lepine gunned down 14 female engineering students in 1989. She said it was an ideal opportunity to acknowledge the disproportionate impact of violence on Aboriginal women.
While NWAC did not stage any large-scale events during the 16-day campaign, Rexe explained that by continually promoting it, they had the excuse to discuss the issue with more individuals and media.
Rexe said she spent November 26 and 27 in Winnipeg presenting their Youth Violence Prevention Toolkit and conducting an education workshop with Winnipeg Police Service executives, new recruits, and the missing person’s unit.
While there, her initiative was invited out for a special lunch with the Chief of Police, something she said would have been unheard of when the initiative began.
“The police force needs to change when it comes to the way that it approaches situations of violence and exploitation of Aboriginal women. The police force has been guilty as an institution in not being more receptive to what the real problems and issues are. So there is a conscious effort to change the institution and not just pay attention to the issues,” said Rexe.
Though change has been slow on a national level when it comes to Canada’s treatment of Aboriginal women, monumental events like that meeting do mark how far the movement has come since Sisters in Spirit began.
To address the national issue, NWAC also promoted Amnesty International’s “Wake-up Call to Canada”, which highlight’s the UN’s harsh 2008 critique of Canada’s behaviour towards Aboriginal women and the action needed for them. Their website even provides a standard letter that anyone can send in protest to Prime Minister Steven Harper to pressure the government for change.
Though they might not have had any specific activities for 2009, the Cree Nation’s own Cree Women of Eeyou Istchee Association (CWEIA) is busy at work planning activities for next year.
According to their regional coordinator, Holly Danyluk, the CWEIA is in the midst of planning their March, 2010 symposium on violence against women.
“We want to include just as many men as women at this symposium so that way we can gather people from all areas within the Cree Nation and we want to focus on the children and their needs,” said Danyluk.
The CWEIA recently sent a resolution to the Grand Council of the Crees (GCC) requesting that the entire month of November be devoted to non-violence within the communities with activities throughout the month, particularly on November 25.
Though the GCC has not passed the resolution yet, according to Deputy Grand Chief Ashley Iserhoff, violence against women or anyone else for that matter is taken very seriously.
“We have to find our own ways. We cannot expect people in leadership or people who are in power to have all of the answers. People need to do their own part to ensure that there is no violence against women or anyone else in our communities. It is up to every individual to make the right choice and say no to violence,” said Iserhoff.