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“It is important to honour the missing and murdered women. It is unacceptable to marginalize these women. The Creator did not create garbage. He created beauty.” Elder Dan Smoke, closing a healing ceremony following the suspicious death of his sister, Deborah Anne Sloss.
At the World Conference on the Prevention of Family Violence, 2005, in Banff, Alberta, Irene Khan, Secretary General of Amnesty International Secretariat, London, England, named the violence of Aboriginal woman in Canada an extreme violation of human rights.
Aboriginal women have the right to be safe and free from violence. Statistics show that Aboriginal women between the ages of 25 and 44 are five times more likely than other women of the same age to die as the result of violence. Racism and discrimination underpin the violence Aboriginal women of all backgrounds experience - First Nations, Métis and Inuit women alike. Today, Aboriginal women and their families face systematic discrimination. They endure the lowest standard of living in Canada. Aboriginal women are the poorest of the poor. We must address the social and economic factors that lead to an Aboriginal woman’s extreme vulnerability to violence. There are other root causes such as laws passed in the 1800’s that stripped women of their Aboriginal status and position in their communities if they were to marry a man from another community, even if the man was also Aboriginal. This left women in danger to be dependant on their spouses. They were frequently unable to return to their home communities for support. Residential schools eroded the sense of identity between the children who attended and their parents. These children were not allowed to speak their languages or to practice their own customs. Some children faced inhuman living conditions, and were sexually and physically abused. For many women and children exposed to repeated abuse the consequences stay with them their whole lives and impact subsequent generations. They carry a sense of shame and self-loathing. Instead of learning good examples of parenting they learn violence and abuse. Aboriginal children are four to six times more likely to be removed from their families and placed in the care of the state. All of this contributes to a loss of sense of identity, belonging and self-worth. We need to understand and address this as a critical factor that contributes to self destructive behaviour and vulnerability to exploitation by others. Many victims resort to self medication using drugs and alcohol to cope with the pain of violence. The result has been far too many Aboriginal women and girls placed in harm’s way, denied adequate protection of the law, and marginalized in a way that allows some men to get away with carrying out violent crimes against them. Violence against Aboriginal women often goes unreported and unpunished. It affects Aboriginal women from all age groups, religions and socio-economic classes. A study by the Ontario Native Women’s Association found:
That 8 out of 10 Aboriginal women in Ontario had personally experienced family violence. In other words, Aboriginal women are eight times more likely to suffer abuse than women in society at large. Of those women, 87% had been injured physically and 57% had been sexually abused (Health Canada, 1997);
In some northern Aboriginal communities, it is believed that between 75% and 90% of women are battered;
Children witness more than half of the violence that occurs between the adults in the home and are also targeted for abuse, especially sexual crimes, with up to three-quarters of Aboriginal girls under the age of 18 having been sexually assaulted.
In summary, these statistics estimate that, at a minimum, 25% of Aboriginal women experience violence at the hands of an intimate partner; however, in some communities, that figure can be as high as 80-90%. In most instances, this abuse happens repeatedly and involves serious physical harm, as well as psychological and emotional abuse. It is also important to realize that up to half of the men report that a family member has abused them. They are much less likely, however, to experience physical injury at the hands of their spouses than are women.
What about violence against Aboriginal men?
Violence against Aboriginal men is also a huge problem, although most violence is committed by men. It occurs in the forms of violence by non-Aboriginal men rooted in racism, with boys and male teens against their peers, sexual assault against boys, physical assault by parents (often fathers) against sons. There also can be violence by women against their spouses. But surveys by Statistics Canada tell us that spousal violence by a woman against a man is less likely to cause injury than the other way around (18% versus 44%).
Even though some men, like women, do experience violence from their spouse, they are much less likely to live in fear of violence at the hands of their spouse. They are also much less likely to experience sexual assault. And many cases of physical violence by a woman against a spouse are in self-defense or the result of many years of physical or emotional abuse. |
