Real Talk!

WOMAN POWER

A life free from violence is a basic human right and yet, statistics prove that at least one out of every three women has been beaten, forced into sex or otherwise abused in her lifetime.

If I appear to be all over the map with this blog, it’s because this subject is ALL OVER THE MAP!

Violence against women and girls is a global, universal problem of pandemic proportions and according to the World Health Organization, up to 70% of female murder victims are killed by their male partners.

Even more staggering is the Canadian government statistic: young Indigenous women are five times more likely than other women of the same age to die as the result of violence.

In British Columbia, Highway 16 has been dubbed “The Highway of Tears” since the mid nineties, when a number of First Nation women disappeared from that area or were found murdered there- at least five of these women were under the age of 18. In 2002, Terri Brown of NWAC (Native Women’s Association of Canada) condution interviews and ascertained that some 31 missing women had fallen victim to The Highway. A film released in July 2009, a film entitled “Finding Dawn” counts the number as more than 60.

Inspired by the Stolen Sisters report (Amnesty International) in 2004 Canada’s Fahrenheit Films produced a one-hour television documentary entitled “Stolen Sisters” that followed one family’s search for a missing loved one and documented other stories of the missing. It first aired in October of 2007.

Five years ago, the Native Women's Association of Canada formed “Sisters In Spirit” a campaign to raise awareness about violence against aboriginal women- many who have suffered domestic abuse, homelessness and such poverty that they have turned to prostitution.

The list of missing and murdered women covers the country.

Laura Madison a criminologist researcher with Dark Horse Consulting in Kenora conducted extensive research into missing people across the country and uncovered discrepancies with how police deal with missing First Nations women. She has provided the Ontario Provincial Police North West Region with training sessions and provided them with handouts about policy, communication, legislative and social issues that require changes to better protect Aboriginal women.

“The fact that you can actually see a missing First Nation woman’s face in the newspapers just started about two years ago,” Madison was quoted as saying in January of 2009.

In February 2009, the UN Human Rights Council issued a report that specifically highlighted the treatment of aboriginal women in Canada as a human rights concern. Apparently, Saskatchewan is the only province to have developed a missing persons committee. Amnesty International, the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC), the National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) and the Liberal Party of Canada have all called on the federal government to take more action on the alarming number of Aboriginal women and girls that have been murdered or gone missing in the past three decades.

As of March 2009-
There were 520 known cases of missing or murdered Aboriginal women and girls in Canada; a group that makes up less than 2% of the Canadian population.
347 of the 520, or 67 percent, were murdered. 126 (24 percent) are women and girls who remain missing;
150 of the 347 murder cases remain unsolved
The majority of cases occurred in Western provinces, with 137 incidents in B.C. alone.
Of the known cases that have been documented:

26% of the incidents occurred in British Columbia, 17% occurred in Alberta, 14% in Manitoba, and 12% in Saskatchewan. (Twenty-six of the B.C. cases are women whose remains were found at the notorious Picton pig farm.)

52% of the cases involve women and girls under the age of 30 years. Fourteen percent of the missing girls and young women were under 18 years of age at the time of their disappearance.
43% of the cases of missing women and girls have occurred during or since 2000.
55% of the cases of murder and 43% of disappearances occurred during or since 2000.

Some native leaders estimate the true number of missing to be closer to 3000.

It's hard to put this in perspective but if you compared the “500” death and disappearance rate to the corresponding number of citizens in this country- it would be equivalent to over 18,000 Canadian women and girls missing or murdered in the past thirty years.

& another horrible statistic: 86% of perpetrators of sexually violent crimes against Native people are non-Native.

On November 12, 1971, four white men abducted Helen Betty Osborne (aged 19) from the streets of The Pas. She was sexually assaulted and brutally murdered. A judge said later:

HELEN BETTY OSBORNE

... the men who abducted Osborne believed that young Aboriginal women were objects with no human value beyond sexual gratification ... Betty Osborne would be alive today had she not been an Aboriginal woman.

A 1991 Manitoba Justice Inquiry into the murder of Helen Betty Osborne concluded that racism and sexism intersect in dangerous stereotypes of Indigenous women as sexually “available” to men. The Inquiry said “Her attackers seemed to be operating on the assumption that Aboriginal women were promiscuous and open to enticement through alcohol or violence. It is evident that the men who abducted Osborne believed that young Aboriginal women were objects with no human value beyond sexual gratification.”

FELICIA SOLOMON

On March 25, 2003 – three decades after the murder of Helen Betty Osborne – her 16-year-old cousin, Felicia Solomon, went missing in Winnipeg- parts of her body were found three months later.

July 1, 2009: The body of Cherisse Houle, 17, had been uncovered by a construction crew working near the shore of Sturgeon Creek in the Rural Municipality of Rosser.

CHERISSE HOULE
Advocacy groups in Manitoba claim there are at least 75 unsolved homicides where the victims were women and on August 1, 2009, the RCMP in Manitoba announced they have launched an investigation to re-examine the cases.

Aug. 20, 2009 A 14-year-old boy who was walking his dog near the intersection of Winnipeg's North Perimeter Highway and Highway 59 found the body of Hillary Angel Wilson- she was a friend of the late Cherisse Houle.

HILLARY ANGEL WILSON

These are daughters, mothers, sisters, cousins... they are my family, too.

WE MUST PUT AN END TO THIS!

UPDATE

http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Could+serial+killer+roaming+Highway/1937131/story.html
By John Bermingham, The ProvinceAugust 28, 2009

Could a serial killer be roaming Highway 16?

Family calls for task force after 6 young females vanish along the route in 12 years

Is a serial killer cruising up and down the Highway of Tears?

Since 1990, six girls or young women have either been murdered or disappeared along Highway 16, which links Prince George to Prince Rupert.

Now the family of one of them is calling for a missing-women task force similar to Vancouver's.

The latest to vanish was Nicole Hoar, a 25-year-old tree-planter who was last seen June 21 hitchhiking from Prince George to Smithers.

A dozen RCMP officers in Prince George are following up hundreds of sightings of Hoar across Canada.

The first of the girls to disappear was Delphine Nikal, 15, who called her family on June 13, 1990, to say she was hitchhiking home to Telkwa, 15 kilometres from Smithers. She was never seen again.

Ramona Wilson, also 15, was spotted walking along the highway on June 11, 1994, looking for a ride from Smithers to a nearby village to see her boyfriend.

Her body was found outside town 10 months later.

Two months later, the body of a Prince George prostitute was found near Burns Lake. Roxanne Thiara, 15, disappeared in July 1994. She told a friend she was going out with a customer.

In December the same year, Alishia Germaine's body was found behind a Prince George elementary school.

The 15-year-old, who friends say was a working prostitute, had been stabbed to death.

Darvin Haugan Jr. wants to know what really happened to his stepsister Lana Derrick, 19, last seen in Terrace on Oct. 7, 1995.

In Derrick's case, her boyfriend committed suicide the night she disappeared.

But Haugan thinks a serial killer may ultimately be behind the disappearance of Derrick and the other women.

Haugan said they all could have been picked up by the same driver.

"There should be a major concern about who is doing this and why," he said from Terrace.

"Is it a serial killer, or what?

"When is it going to stop? The police are pretty tight-mouthed about what's going on."

Haugan wants a task force set up to answer "who and why?"

"Something's got to be done," he said.

"Obviously, the police force aren't getting anywhere, so maybe a task force should be brought in. This issue needs to be addressed soon."

Lead investigator Cpl. Judy Thomas said there is no link between Hoar's disappearance and the other women other than the route.

"When you get missing people or homicides along that route, people say, is it the route that connects them?" she said.

Parents Jack and Barb Hoar, from Red Deer, Alta., were in Prince George last week to thank the community for its help and donate funds to Search and Rescue operations.

Jack's employer is offering a $25,000 reward to anyone who finds Nicole.

Police say they can find no thread linking all six women to a single perpetrator.

A recent internal review of the five historical files has concluded that there is no evidence pointing to a serial killer.

Police spokesman Sgt. Tom Bethune would not elaborate on how police came to their conclusion.

One of the main reasons is lifestyle differences: Two of the girls were known prostitutes. Four were native or part-native.

Bethune wouldn't say if any of the three women found dead near the highway were sexually assaulted.

There was supposed to be a task force in 1997 to find a serial killer or rule one out. But it was put on hold, owing to budget cutbacks.

Investigators admit they can't cope with the current workload. It's hard finding the time to follow up tips when there's more immediate work to do.

"I can tell you that every tip that comes into this office is being explored to the nth degree," said Bethune, referring to the Hoar investigation.

The older investigations are more difficult to keep in the public mind.

Prince George Coun. Shirley Gratton said the federal government should fund the police task force, if it is to get started at all.

"Our wilderness is so wild out here that it's like a needle in a haystack to find where these people would be," she said.

"They could be from anywhere, these people that are picking up these girls."

Gratton said she still sees girls hitchhiking along the highway, despite the dangers.

"I guess when you're young, the fear isn't in you," she said. "When you get older, you're more cautious."