This past Friday was Red Dress Day in Canada. the powerful visual reminder that thousands of Indigenous women and girls have gone missing or have been murdered through the decades. The RCMP say that the number is 1,000 since 1980 but others put the figure at more than 4,000. As the date suggests, this doesn't include the untold number of women and girls who disappeared prior to this.
This terrible toll continues to the present day. Indigenous women account for about a quarter of all female homicide victims in Canada despite making up just five per cent of the female population nationally.Through the winter we heard of four Indigenous women in Manitoba believed murdered by the same man who has been charged with these crimes. Their bodies were likely disposed of in a landfill, like garbage. These women were loved and cherished.
We need this annual reminder of the terrible injustice of violence against Indigenous women and girls. I don't really want to consider this again and again, yet I know that the denomination I served in ministry for decades was complicit in marginalizing and violating Indigenous children in the Residential School system. This created a cascade of intergenerational trauma which continues to the present day and contributes to the ongoing tragedy of the missing.
Here is a link to the Moosehide Campaign in which the United Church is participating. It is an initiative to Take a stand against violence toward Indigenous women, girls, and 2S-LGBTQIA+ people. I encourage you to read and consider how you might become involved.
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