The crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls in Canada is both a national tragedy and a national shame. The book Forever Loved: Exposing the Hidden Crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in Canada includes voices from the academic realms and grassroots and front-lines to speak on what has been identified by both the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the United Nations as a grave violation of the basic human rights of Aboriginal women and girls
By Summer Rain Bentham, Hilla Kerner, and Lisa Steacy
Prostitution, akin to the residential school system, is an institution that continues to have devastating impacts on the lives of aboriginal women and girls, who are disproportionately involved in street-level prostitution. Prostitution is an industry that relies on disparities in power to exist.
As women and girls indigenous to this land, who have resisted centuries of colonial oppression, we assert our right to our lands, cultures, laws, and body sovereignty. We reject any ruling that interferes with these unalienable rights. We pledge to continue in the proud tradition of our Mothers and Grandmothers and to continue to fight for our children and grandchildren.
We stand in solidarity with and respect for the rights and demands of our Native sisters all across Canada. Aboriginal women continue to be objectified, disrespected, dishonoured, ignored and killed with little consequence for the men responsible.
Canada has been criticized by the United Nations for its shameful income assistance rates. Women return to or cannot leave abusive relationships because they are unable to adequately provide for themselves and their children on welfare. A crucial measure to prevent the vulnerability of women to men's violence is in providing economic security to aboriginal women.
The missing were Women, many Aboriginal Women, the friends and neighbours and even beat cops who reported them gone feared Violence against Women. Those fears were based on the vulnerability of women in prostitution, the violence of men buying sex, the viciousness of sexualized racism toward Aboriginal women on Vancouver streets and the prevalence of all forms of Violence against Women. Their fears have been proved horribly insightful.
Prostitution is intimately associated with sex inequality, poverty, racism and colonialism. Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, one of the poorest areas in North America, is referred to as the “urban reserve” by its First Nations residents.
