In Canada, indigenous women are 12 times more likely to go missing or be murdered than any

other women, 16 times more likely y than white women,

They represent 10% of homicides in Canada yet they only make up around 3% of Canada's
population. In Saskatchewan alone 59 percent of missing women and girls are aboriginal. It is
suspected by It Starts with us that in the last 30 years there have been at least 500 possible
victims.

Starting March 31st, 2010 the native's women's association of Canada gathered information on
582 cases to form statistics, of those cases 67% were murdered, 20% were missing cases, 4%
were suspicious deaths and 9% nature was

unknown. They calculated that 88% were mothers which needed up to 440 children impacted.
Most of the cases occurred in western provinces 54%, and 70% were in urban areas and of those
60% were homicides. Yet only 53% of cases resulted in charges pressed against someone.

One of the most "famous" areas where indigenous women are targeted and get killed or go
missing is the infamous stretch of highway on highway 16 in British Columbia. Nicknamed
"Highway of tears," they say more than 50 women have gone missing or been murdered on the
highway of tears. As an example a teen girl named Ramona disappeared in June 1994, they
found her body eleven months after and in the meantime had found two others (Roxane Thiara
and Alisha Germaine) and a college student went missing and was never found. To this day
Ramonas' case remains unsolved.

Ramona's sister and many other indigenous allies and groups have been trying for years to get a
national inquiry done, they've done so by holding many protests like the Montreal metro silent
protest and many more. Even when the government finally accorded the national inquiry, they
delayed it due to covid reasons. Because of the delay even more protests happened due to the rise
of violence towards indigenous women during the pandemic. There is also the wear red
movement which is when on may 5th you wear read and post photos on social media with the
hashtags #Nationalawrnessday #MMIWG or #MMIW.

In response to all of this, the gov of Canada has created a national inquiry. The report has 231
calls for justice and after a difficult 6 years of trying to get it, it was finally published after
multiple delays due to covid June 3rd, 2021. The government will invest 2.2 billion over 5 years
and 190.9 million ongoings to measure progress. The plan is to make it adapt regularly, it will
reach all levels of the can gov and will have changes that adapt depending on the regions. Its
goal will be to regain power for indigenous women and girls. It will accomplish that by
community hearings, past and current research, collaboration with elders and police records.
They will give public education by giving survivors and survivors' families a place to share their
voices, through community, institutions and hearings. It is a major stroke towards ending
violence.

The government also created an RCMP task force to deal with the issue of the dangers of
Highway 16. The task force has 18 cases on its list of which 10 are indigenous. They originally
started with 70 investigators but are now reduced to six. Two of them worked on the largest
serial case in Canada, the robbery Pickton case, he was a man who confessed to killing 49
women at his pig farm and was charged for 25 of them. The two investigators have said they
know the identity of multiple killers but cannot charge them due to lack of evidence, they receive
20 tips per month and follow up on all of them.

Bridget trolley is an Algonquin woman, grandmother of five from the Kibi reserve in Quebec.
Her mother Oct 5 2001 was struck and killed on the reserve by a police cruiser. Since her
mother's assault, Bridget has been fighting for justice and accountability for her mother. She was
never allowed to see her mother's body, not even the coroner could, it was only the police. The
head investigator was the brother of the policeman who was driving the car. Brenda tried to start
an indépendant investigation but the Quebec gov denied it so she started to put her efforts
towards the federal government instead. But for Bridget, it's not just about finding justice for her
mother and her family "It wasn't just my mother they were forgetting about, they were forgetting
about all the women ''. Brenda has worked since 2015 with the Sister in Spirit project, a project
started by the Native Women's Association of Canada. Its job is to gather statistical information
about violence against indigenous women and show the alarming trends and rates of violence.
But the Harper government has shut down the project and admitted a mass cut of programs for
indigenous women and girls. Brenda says "This is one thing the government was trying to do is
silence us again by not funding the Sisters In Spirit, I thought that they were making us disappear
again." But Brenda claims she and the families of the sister in spirit are not and will not go
anywhere they will remember them and never let the world forget. Brenda says that some
estimate since 1980 as many as three thousand indigenous women and girls have gone missing or
been murdered.

A very prominent non-profit organization is Amnesty International Canada. It was founded in

1974 and is a human rights organization. It released the no more stolen sisters report. In march
2015 it published a critical sum array of the national roundtable and put a call to the national
government to stop the violence towards indigenous women. Amnesty also released the Out of
sight out of mind report that showed the details of the "shadow population" of mostly young men
who contribute to the violence against indigenous women by straining social services. They also
participated in the open letter that called on the federal government for an inquiry with the help
of The Native

Women's Association of Canada (NWAC), Canadian Feminist Alliance for, International Action
(FAFIA), International, Women's Legal Education and Action Fund and Kairos