Problem

As a privileged white woman living in an upper middle class neighbourhood in Ottawa, I can honestly say that I feel moderately safe at any given moment of the day. This is a luxury, I have come to learn, many women here in Canada live without. Between the years of 1980-2012, a total of 1017 Indigenous women have gone missing or have been murdered. They rack up a homicide rate approximately 4.5 times higher than all other Canadian women. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that other women have it easy here in our nation; we still suffer from a pay wage gap, discrimination in the workforce, verbal attacks, and countless other inequalities- but don’t you think living would be much more difficult with that statistic hanging over your head?

What people seem to be forgetting is that these reports aren’t just reports- they’re people, and they have names. Their names are: Cherisse Houle, found dead in a creek at the ripe old age of 17; Constance Cameron, whose murder 30 years ago seems to have been forgotten; Helen Betty Osborne, whose only crime was walking down the street as a woman of colour; and countless others who seem to become and remain “just another report.” People forget that these women have families, dreams, and stories that scream hopelessly to be remembered in a room full of Authorities who label them as just another report.

We must stop caring only about the headlines and more about the actual person behind the story.

We can do better; in our communities, in our schools, and in our Country as a whole. I once heard that we die twice in our lives, once when we take our last breathe, and another when our name is said for the last time. So with that in mind, we must never stop crying the names of all 1017 women, as to never let their stories die with them. At least not until justice is served.