The Canadian Museum for Human Rights says it fully supports calls to search for the remains of Indigenous women believed to be the victims of an alleged Winnipeg serial killer.
"In this situation, the human rights implications are clear," Isha Khan—CEO of the Winnipeg-based museum—wrote in an August 9th letter addressed to Grand Chief Cathy Merrick of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs.
In the letter, Khan cites Article 12 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which says Indigenous peoples have the right to retrieve the remains of family and community members.
Last month, supporters set up a encampment outside the human rights museum at The Forks, shortly after an injunction was granted to remove protesters who had been blockading the entrance to the city-owned Brady Road landfill in south Winnipeg.
The museum's support of a search for the missing women "highlights the deep human rights implications of the situation," the release stated.
"We carry the responsibility to honor those who have been murdered or gone missing," the letter said, and "to highlight how Canada's treatment of Indigenous peoples often offends the ideas of universal dignity that underpin our national commitment to human rights."
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