Wed Jun 20,
Canadian Press
CORNER BROOK, N.L. (CP) - Native leaders and some premiers have gathered in western
Beverley Jacobs, president of the Native Women's Association of Canada, said Wednesday she hopes to strike a 10-year plan that would outline ways of reducing the number of aboriginal women who are sexually assaulted, go missing or are murdered.
"It's a crisis situation that we're in right now, where there's over 500 missing and murdered aboriginal women in the last 15 to 20 years," Jacobs said in an interview.
"Nobody's crying out ... so after 10 years are we going to hear that there's a plan to address and deal with what we're calling racialized and sexualized violence?"
Jacobs also hopes to tackle the lack of native women's property rights. Many aboriginal women and their children are often left with nothing when couples break up because the 131-year-old Indian Act that governs most of the country's 600 First Nations is silent on property and asset sharing.
"It's really the men who keep the home and it's usually the women and her children that are trying to find a place to live," she said.
"There aren't many shelters on reserve, so usually she'll end up in an urban centre living in poverty, raising her children in risky situations. She has to find a way of survival to feed her kids, so she ends up on the street, then maybe missing and found murdered."
The dire picture she paints of life for many aboriginals is backed up by a study released last year by the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics.
The report showed natives living on reserves were eight times more likely to be assaulted and seven times more likely to be sexually assaulted compared with national averages.
Those suffering domestic abuse more often reported that they'd been beaten, sexually assaulted, choked or threatened with a weapon. They were also more likely than non-native victims to be injured by their spouses or to fear for their lives.
The summit, which begins with formal discussions Thursday, is an opportunity to address that, Jacobs said.
Jacobs and other native leaders accused the federal government of ignoring their issues when it delivered its budget in March. But in a video presentation at the summit's evening reception, federal Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice touted
"I look forward to hearing your views on the tools that you need to achieve equality and greater empowerment for aboriginal women," Prentice said.
"You can be assured that federal cabinet ministers, provincial and territorial premiers and aboriginal leaders will be studying your recommendations closely."
"It had an overwhelming impact on me," Williams said.
"I found the specific, anecdotal stories of incidents and circumstances surrounding some of the individuals to be the most poignant and the most significant. When you hear ... what is actually occurring in some of our aboriginal communities, that's what really brings it home to me."
About 300 delegates, including premiers Gordon Campbell of