 |
|||
|
|||
Why we must demand a full public inquiry into violence against Aboriginal girls Finally, after well over a decade of pleas for justice by family members, women’s groups and Aboriginal organizations, some of the criminal justice system failures that made it possible for a killer to continue to brutally prey on women in the Downtown Eastside are headline news. As an organization that has advocated for homeless and low income teenage girls for over 11 years, and closely follows cases of violence against girls living in poverty, we know that the failures of police and Crown in the Pickton case are far from being an anomaly but rather are part of a systemic and disturbing problem within the criminal justice system of failing to protect girls and women, and Aboriginal girls and women in particular, from violent men. As advocates for marginalized girls we also know that one of the stories that remains largely untold is the story of how the women who were murdered by Pickton, and those women who are still missing, were pushed into day to day destitution, poverty, homelessness, and vulnerability to male violence, including prostitution, in the Downtown Eastside. We know that it is poverty, especially grossly inadequate welfare rates, ongoing colonization, along with/including a long chain of failures by the child welfare system and the criminal justice system that make girls and women increasingly more vulnerable to homelessness and male violence. Inadequate child welfare and criminal justice system responses to violence, especially sexual violence, push many girls out onto the street, often between ages 12 and 16. Studies from Canada and the United States confirm that between about sixty and eighty-five percent of all homeless girls have been sexually abused, whether in foster homes, other government care institutions, within the family, or in the community. Yet, in our experience, child welfare ministries and criminal justice authorities often have to be forced to act to prevent further violence against girls. It is disturbing that Aboriginal children in British Columbia are seven times more likely to be taken into state care than non-Aboriginal children. This ongoing removal of Aboriginal children from their families, communities, and cultures is reminiscent of the residential school system, as many experts have noted. When Aboriginal girls run away from foster homes and group homes in which they experience racism, alienation, and abuse; when girls leave their family homes or communities because they can’t endure the violence or poverty anymore; or run away from institutional child welfare placements, predatory older men step-in and “offer” them places to stay. These men, framing themselves as “boyfriends,” push young women into prostitution by initially offering them an escape from extreme poverty and homelessness. Once young women are in prostitution pimps use extreme violence, psychological manipulation and torture, drug addiction and constant surveillance to keep them there. Despite public perception, men who sexually exploit girls rarely face the consequences of the criminal justice system. A public inquiry into the policing investigation of the missing and murdered women from the Downtown Eastside must also seek accountability from the child welfare system, the criminal justice system, and other government agencies that failed many of these women from the time that they were girls. A full public inquiry must expose RCMP, VPD, and Crown failures to protect women from Pickton. The RCMP in particular needs to be held accountable for its part in failing to arrest Pickton and prevent the murders of many more women. The RCMP’s disturbing inaction in these cases is not a rarity but a part of a large systemic problem of poorly investigating and failing to prevent violence against girls and women, especially Aboriginal girls and women. Twelve teenage girls and young women, almost all of them Aboriginal, have been murdered or went missing along northern B.C.’s Highway of Tears, within the RCMP’s jurisdiction, between 1974 and 2006. None of their cases have been solved. They are: Aielah Saric-Auger (age 14), Ramona Wilson (age 15), Alberta Williams (age 24), Lana Derrick (age 19), Roxanne Thiara (age 15), Alishia Germaine (age 16), Delphine Nikal, (age 16), Cecilia Nikal (age unknown), Nicole Hoar (age 24), Tamara Chipman (age 22), Monica Ignas (age 14) and Deena Lynn Braem (age 16). According to community members many more girls and women have gone missing. We must demand a full public inquiry into the police investigation of murdered and missing women from the Downtown Eastside because human life has immense value, because these women were mothers, sisters, daughters, aunties, and because many were deprived of the chance of being grandmothers. We must also demand a full public inquiry because profound change needs to take place in the policing of violence against women and girls in this province. Asia Czapska, Advocate |
|
||
|
|
|||
 |
|||
|
|||
|
|||