Women's association a national force

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The Ontario Native Women's Association is a force to be reckoned with.

What started out as a grassroots provincial group defending women's rights has become a political advocacy group influencing Native groups across the country.

It was dogged determination that saw ONWA representatives sit with male Native leaders during the Charlottetown negotiations. And because of ONWA members' dedication, the issue of Native self-government became subject to an equality clause which represented women's voices.

Yet the executive director Marlene Pierre hesitates to call the association feminist.

"We tackle day-to-day issues. We are helping women fight for food on the table, to stop the beatings and take care of the family. If that is feminism, so be it," Pierre said.

ONWA was formed in 1971 to lift the "buckskin curtain" and deal with the social and economic situations of women that weren't being addressed by male-dominated politics. Women were being totally excluded from Native politics, particularly Metis and non-status women.

And ONWA's reception by many councils was anything but warm. At one point, ONWA representatives were told to keep out of a reserve because the council would "look after their own women."

"We were treated disdainfully, like lepers. No one wanted anything to do with us," Pierre recalls of her continuing 22-year involvement with the association.

It took women like herself and Edith McLeod, mother of recently-deceased Alberta Metis leader Larry Desmeules, to develop a network that now includes 63 locals across Ontario. Another founding member, Janet Corbier-Lavalle, took sec. 12.1B, recognizing Native women's rights, to the Supreme Court of Canada.

The locals are split between on and off-reserve centres run by volunteers. Besides being a resource centre for women, many locals serve other community objectives, such as day-care centres.

In 1989 ONWA released a study on family violence that shocked Canada's native community into action. The study sprang from a survey of 1,000 women in Ontario. Eight out of 10 women experienced violence in the home, more than 50 per cent were single parents with an average of five children, and one in four had been sexually abused.

Today ONWA is involved in developing an Aboriginal family healing strategy with the provincial government. Two healing lodges will soon open in Ontario, one at a remote camp north of Sudbury, and the second an urban lodge in Fort Francis, for on and off-reserve Aboriginals. ONWA is also developing an Aboriginal health policy with the government, an issue that goes hand in hand with healing the family, says Holly Hughes, executive assistant.

They are also one of the groups working with the Ministry of Colleges and Universities in training instituting Native councils in to screen funding applications for Native programs.

"They have to meet certain criteria so that they can't use Native funding for other programs," Hughes explained. The group is working on a similar program for elementary schools where such funding manipulation is also known.

Pierre still views ONWA as a grassroots organization, speaking for women who are unable to speak for themselves because of their location or lack of resources.

"In Ontario we have been able to gain much credibility and visibility through our insistence on being present at meetings," said Pierre.

She encourages women to form their own locals and become involved in making community decisions.

"The only way you're going to make changes is to be involved. We feel very strongly that women have to take leadership in these issues."