Body Count Rising
Laurie Odjick, an Algonquin from Kitigan Zibi, once again found her missing daughter’s name in the news recently. Some mysterious bones had been found on the side of the road beside Highway 107, near Highway 117, in Grand-Remous, not far from Maniwaki where Maisy Odjick, 17, disappeared from. Thankfully the bones turned out to be animal remains.
Maisy Odjick has been missing since September 5, 2008. She disappeared along with her friend, Shannon Alexander, without a trace and at the time, without a search.
Her mother, Laurie Odjick, has appeared twice in the Nation recently, speaking with the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC) in March and then again in April to call for volunteers to help do a proper search of the area for clues into Maisy’s disappearance.
Initially when her daughter disappeared the KZ police would not conduct a search because they believed the girl was a runaway, despite the fact that she at 16 disappeared without her wallet, identification, money, clothing or makeup.
Her mother knew something was wrong but nobody would help her.
The problem with this scenario is that there are many Laurie Odjicks across Canada, families of girls and women who have disappeared only to have police not help or hear their stories or take their issues seriously.
The NWAC, through its Sisters in Spirit Initiative, has not only been tracking data on missing and murdered Aboriginal women, it has also created reports for the families and communities on these women.
The second version of this report was just released in April. Laurie Odjick’s story about her daughter Maisy is in the report.
“We have nine stories in this report of missing and murdered women and the report itself skyrocketed from 60 pages to over 100 in the update. We want to be able to tell these women’s stories for as long as we can,” said NWAC’s Mallory Whiteduck, a researcher on the reports.
The updated report contains not only stories from the families of the missing and murdered but research findings, policy recommendations and new statistical data that NWAC has managed to compile.
What is more disturbing is how, since the last report came out in November 2008, the number of missing and murdered women has risen from 511 to 520. Whiteduck pointed out it has even grown in the last month.
The report, titled Voices of Our Sisters In Spirit: A Report to Families and Communities, also offers families and loved ones a rare opportunity to speak to the public on behalf of their family members.
“The Sisters in Spirit Initiative is rooted in the power of voice. We are just trying to be the mouthpiece that gets the families voices out there. I think a lot of the families feel as though they are not being heard by groups, such as the police. A lot of the stories in the report are from families who went to the police when their family members were missing and the police did not believe them,” said Whiteduck.
Since the first edition of the report was released, those working for the Sisters in Spirit Initiative felt it necessary to come out with a second edition only months later because of those families. While there might have been no reports on these families in previous years, Whiteduck explained that in the last year the Sisters in Spirit Initiative has “blown up.” The vigils that the initiative have been holding every October, coupled by the panel series that NWAC president Beverley Jacobs has been conducting in various Canadian cities with the families of these women, has garnered the movement a great deal of attention.
Whiteduck explained it is the position of Sisters in Spirit to get the new stories from family members because some of them have suffered in silence for so long without justice or even a forum to voice their frustrations and grief.
In the latest edition of the report there are three new life stories about the missing and murdered. There are also updates into some of the cases along with new tributes from the families.
As for Laurie Odjick, on May 2, as the Nation previously reported, a large-scale search was conducted with the help of search-and-rescue organization, Search and Rescue Global 1. Over 240 individuals, volunteers and professionals participated in the search but nothing of interest was found.
Maisy Odjick and Shannon Alexander still rank among the 520 and at this time, there is no new information on their whereabouts or what might have happened to the missing teenage girls.
For more information on Maisy and Shannon, go to: www.findmaisyandshannon.com/
To download a .PDF copy of Sisters in Spirit’s latest report or to find out more about NWAC or Sisters in Spirit, go to: www.nwac-hq.org