Despite increased awareness, Aboriginal women remain at risk

Hundreds of people battled heavy rain to gather in solidarity and remember the missing and murdered women of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. The 20th Annual Women’s Memorial March was held Feb. 14.

“We are here because we are failing to protect women from the degradation of poverty and systemic exploitation, abuse and violence,” said organizer Marlene George in a statement before the march. “We are here in sorrow and in anger because the violence continues each and every day and the list of missing and murdered women gets longer every year,” she said.

Despite growing public attention to the issue and various police initiatives to respond to it, little has changed in the past 20 years regarding the safety of women in the Downtown Eastside, say area advocates, adding that about 10 women from the community have been killed in the past year.

“There are loud and clear messages that we need justice,” participant Gladys Radek told family and friends at a memorial gathering before the march. “We have to start taking our lives back, women,” she urged.

“We need accountability and we need justice,” said Lynn Frey of Campbell River, whose daughter Marnie was one of the six women murdered by convicted serial killer Robert Pickton.

“This isn’t going to end today or tomorrow,” Frey continued. “But if we all stand together maybe the laws will change.”

But Dalannah Bowen of the memorial march committee said the Vancouver Police Department must start taking seriously the complaints and tips from the Downtown Eastside community. She believes that authorities only started paying attention to missing and murdered women after Pickton’s arrest. Bowen blames discrimination and class stratification for police inaction.

“Because there were Aboriginal people and addicts and sex-trade workers giving [police] the information, and they didn’t listen,” she insisted.

A Missing Women Commission of Inquiry, headed by former judge and B.C. attorney general, Wally Oppal, was announced last year. The inquiry will review the police files into the missing women from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside from January 1997 to February 2002.

The report will examine why Pickton wasn’t arrested sooner and what could be done to enhance future murder investigations. Pickton is convicted of brutally slaying six women and is currently serving a life sentence with no possibility of parole for 25 years, the maximum sentence under Canadian law. Pickton has allegedly boasted about murdering 49 women during his killing-spree.

Oppal has until the end of 2011 to complete the inquiry.
While most Downtown Eastside advocates say they hope the report will provide insight into the botched Pickton investigation, many also say they have concerns regarding the inquiry process.

“While the government has finally established an inquiry which we have demanded for years, we have not been consulted or involved in any meaningful way about the purpose or scope or terms of reference,” said Carol Martin, a victims service worker in the Downtown Eastside.

Critics of the inquiry also say the investigation timeline is too narrow and doesn’t take into consideration the countless missing and murdered women prior to 1997, including women who have vanished along the so-called Highway of Tears, Hwy. 16 between Prince George and Prince Rupert in northern British Columbia.

During the march, which wound though the streets of Vancouver’s skid row, yellow and red roses were placed in alleys and alcoves where women had died. Elders and march officials uttered prayers and burned sweet grass, while many in the procession drummed and sang.

Two women remembered at the march were Ashley Machiskinic, 22, of the Kawacatoose First Nation in Saskatchewan, and known sex-trade worker, Carla Marie Smith, 27. Machiskinic was found dead in an alley behind a Downtown Eastside hotel after she was allegedly pushed to her death from a fifth floor suite Sept. 15, 2010. Smith’s body was found Feb. 7 in a Burnaby park. Homicide is believed to have been a factor in both cases, although police initially ruled Machiskinic’s death a suicide.

The march concluded at the Vancouver Police Department offices where speeches were made and cries of justice and solidarity rang out.

“I stand before you today with a heavy heart of pain that I carry for the loss of a loved one,” said Mona Woodward, whose niece was Machiskinic. “If we stay united and take a stand we can make changes,” she told the crowd. “You have the power to change yourselves. You have the power to change future generations,” she concluded.

“What is good is that people are listening and people are raising awareness,” Bowen told Windspeaker. “But until there is justice for these situations we still have more work to do,” she said.

Memorial marches took place in 10 Canadian cities, including: Toronto, Montreal, Winnipeg, Calgary and Victoria.

The march came one day before convicted Vancouver sex-offender, Martin Tremblay, was sentenced to 11 months in jail on two drug counts. In 2002 Tremblay was convicted of five counts of drugging underage Aboriginal girls, sexually assaulting them and videotaping the attacks. Now that Tremblay is behind bars, Vancouver police are asking all potential victims to come forward.

Top Photo: The participants of the Annual Memorial March for Missing and Murdered Women stopped traffic on Feb. 14 as they made their way through Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

Bottom Photo: Messages to the murdered or missing women were carried through Vancouver streets.