The deputy grand chief of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation says the fact that indigenous women have been murdered or gone missing in the past year demonstrates the need for a national inquiry.
Through NAN, Alvin Fiddler released a statement to media on Friday calling on the federal government to conduct an inquiry following a report by the RCMP that show 11 more women have disappeared since a report was issued last May.
He said the focus needs to stop being narrowed and instead a big picture look has to be taken at systemic factors.
“This update reconfirms the need for immediate action, but focusing on the connection between homicides and family violence in Aboriginal communities has the danger of painting this as an Aboriginal problem when this is not just about the relationship between the victims and the perpetrators of this violence,” Fiddler said in the statement.
“The RCMP’s conclusion that Aboriginal women are most frequently killed by someone they know is no excuse for the Government of Canada’s refusal to call an inquiry. It is imperative that we uncover the greater systemic issues that has led to these murders and disappearances, and this is exactly what would be examined through the inquest process.”
The Missing and Murdered Aborigional Women: An Operation Review report was released in May 2014 and revealed 1,181 women had disappeared or been killed between 1980 and 2012, with 225 of those cases being unsolved.
The RCMP have solved about nine per cent of those unsolved cases within the past year.
The NAN Chiefs-in-Assembly have endorsed a motion calling on the federal government to launch a national inquiry.
