Calls are once again ringing out in Canada and the United States for action to stop violence against Indigenous women and girls, a persistent problem that has devastated communities across North America for decades.
This Friday marks Missing or Murdered Indigenous Persons Awareness Day in the US, and National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, also known as Red Dress Day, in Canada.
“On Missing or Murdered Indigenous Persons Awareness Day, we remember the many lives shattered or lost, and commit to working with Native communities to find justice, keep families safe, and help them heal,” US President Joe Biden said in a statement.
For years Indigenous people have sounded the alarm on the disproportionate high numbers of girls, women, and two-spirit people who have either been killed or disappeared in the US and Canada.
In Canada, the federal police reported in 2014 that almost 1,200 Indigenous women had been murdered and disappeared, between 1980 and 2012. A National Inquiry on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls concluded in 2019 that the violence “amounts to a race-based genocide of Indigenous Peoples” that especially targets women, girls, and members of the LGBTQ2S+ community.
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