Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls: We Need Action Not Reports

As a family member of Ashley Simpson, I welcomed the release this week of the Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls by the federal government. 

https://www.mmiwg-ffada.ca/

I hope that it helps. 

Clearly, it's taken too long to do a 'deep dive' into why so many women and girls have been savaged, raped and murdered at home, and when they go out into the world. My main hope is that the police in these rural communities get more resources, and better training, because until this happens, more women and girls will be slaughtered and never found.

I feel so deeply for the Indigenous community, and for their stolen sisters. It was, in fact, the First Nations community women who embraced Ashley as one of their own. That is their way, they show their wisdom, doggedness and commitment to righting the wrongs of the past. They are so strong and their spirit should make the rest of us ashamed for not caring enough, or not educating ourselves enough about what is happening to these sisters.

Unfortunately, the work of the Inquiry has become political, and words like "genocide" are being bandied about, in hopes perhaps of making the story above the fold in the Globe and Mail. Politicians will do so much handwringing about how they can possibly rewrite history. They can't, of course. So much damage has been done, so many lives have been ruined.

The report has come too late for so many women, and communities who have lost loved ones, and whose cries have fallen on deaf ears in law enforcement. There are no do-overs, there are no new beginnings. It's too late for sorries, too long down the road for hopes and prayers.

I hope the work of the Inquiry doesn't gather dust. But I think I can be excused for being skeptical. 

It's like mental health. Remember when the Senate released its report on mental health nearly 15 years ago? In a  much ballyhooed move, a Mental Health Commission was unveiled, and staffed. And while some progress has been made, resources remain scarce in our communities to help the mentally ill, and the stigma continues to permeate our society. People still fall through the cracks and mental health continues to be understaffed particularly within our communities.

Historically, inquiry reports are released with fanfare, and then they are shelved, or archived on the Internet. So why should this one be different?

Here's what happens when an adult woman goes missing. Police are called, often eventually, assumptions are made about the woman's character, a search is conducted, dental records are ordered. Witnesses are asked for polygraphs, but they don't have to take them. 

After a few days, searches end, and files remain open. Years pass, leads go cold.

Nobody says anything. 

It is left to the families and friends of the victims to keep up the search, to hire planes and helicopters. If no body is found, that's about it.

There aren't enough resources to find so many women who go missing -- Indigenous or otherwise.

Sometimes law enforcement gets lucky. Often not.

The missing become yesterday's news. 

Fortunately, something is happening in our communities. People are waking up and realizing that there is an epidemic of violence in their communities, and they are taking action.

I am part of a group called Wings of Mercy, which is made up of volunteers who take up the cause of the missing when law enforcement goes home. The group is mainly comprised of drone operators and has grown to 1,000 members since it was first started a year or so after Ashley and three other women disappeared in Salmon Arm.

Now when a woman goes missing, the group is alerted immediately, and money is raised. Volunteers fan out with their drones, photos are analyzed. It's just the beginning, but it's better than nothing. 

It's this kind of community action that will make a difference. 

But of course, we need to do much more. 

We need to galvanize volunteers in our communities to go out and look for the missing as soon as their cases are reported.

Citizens need to become more involved when they see violence against any woman, man or child. If you see something say something. This isn't about Indigenous women, not at all. How many immigrant women are living under the threat of violence, in communities that are closed and cloistered? How many immigrant girls are victimized because of archaic cultural practices? Who is looking out for these women, many of whom remain isolated in their homes?

My cousin Ashley was not Indigenous. She was a white girl from St. Catharines, Ontario who worked in kitchens and hotels as a cook, server and desk clerk. She wasn't a street worker, or a junkie, just a girl who was in an abusive relationship, who became isolated and estranged by geography from her loving family with whom she kept in touch on a daily basis.

It took a solid week before she was reported missing.

A week. 

And it took more days to get the investigation going, allowing for evidence to be destroyed.

It is not the job of an inquiry to right these wrongs.

It is the responsibility of all of us.

If you see something, say something.

If you call the cops, call them again and demand action.

These are our sisters, our daughters, our students in school, our patients in waiting rooms.

This is not an Indigenous issue.

Like mental health, violence against women is a community issue.

I would, frankly, have loved for the government to put some of the money from that Inquiry into our drone program. Alas, it wouldn't have made the front page of the Globe and Mail.