Pauline Shirt’s sister Mary was found murdered at the age of 17 in their parent’s home.
She had been there for about six hours before anyone discovered the body and although the RCMP conducted an investigation, her murder remains unsolved.
“Our hearts were broken,” Shirt said Tuesday afternoon at the sixth annual Sisters in Spirit Vigil at Hillcrest Park. “We were very annoyed and angry with what happened, but we have joined others … there are people in the same situation as us.”
The annual vigil is a national event; there were 60 ceremonies happening across Canada Tuesday. The event aims to shed light on the more than 600 missing and murdered Aboriginal women across Canada. The majority of the cases remain unsolved.
Shirt said the vigil is important in bonding people together, so they can work collectively to solve this crisis.
“We have to educate the people of what has happened to our people in the past 500 years without putting the guilt in there,” she said. “We have to come together and heal … work together in a unified way.”
Ontario Native Women’s Association director Corinne Nabigon said the issue of missing and murdered Aboriginal women is a national tragedy.
“We are very concerned about our women and we need to stand up as a united front and do something about it,” she said. “We want justice and also we want equality for our women.”
Nabigon said they need more funding from the government as well as the respect they deserve, and by partnering with the government she said they can create change.
Hearing the stories from family members of lost Aboriginal women helps them stay grounded and focuses, Nabigon added.
“It brings much healing to our being and we take a little more, have a little more peace so we can go back to our families and share that harmony with them,” she said.
