Shame on NWAC

Editorial

Page 4

Years of struggle for recognition of women's rights in Canada's Native communities have been discarded by the same organization entrusted with the defence of those rights. The political voice of Aboriginal women, the Native Women's Association of Canada, has risen to a high-pitched whine and may be ruining their 19 years of labor by acting like a 12-year-old. NWAC's stated mandates are to promote the well-being of Aboriginal women, and to end sex discrimination against them. And what years of confrontation with chauvinistic Natives in the struggle to obtain equal rights for women failed to accomplish, a bitter in-house vendetta apparently has.

The association is immobilized, its Ottawa office empty, save for a beleaguered temporary secretary and an executive administrator. In a matter of days, the battle between two (former) members has managed to discredit the one supposedly unified voice of Native women, just as its opponents have tried to do for years. A dismissal, a resignation and the mass walk-out of the NWAC staff has led to malicious acts totally lacking in the dignity called for from national organizations. While many organizations suffer from in-house bickering that effects the running of an office, this public display of pettiness is undermining all that NWAC stands for - the recognition of Native women as equals in Aboriginal communities across this nation.

NWAC was our voice during the passing of Bill C-31 which reinstated women who lost their status through marriage. The organizations fought for us during the constitutional talks and the Charlottetown Accord.

We were proud of NWAC, but now we are disappointed.