Image Credit: CFJC Today

By Adam Donnelly

GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE

Tk’emlups te Secwepemc hosts’ events on National day of Action on Violence Against Women

Dec 9, 2019 | 5:47 PM

KAMLOOPS — Saturday was the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women. For over a decade, the annual Kamloops Shoe Memorial has been commemorating women’s lives lost to violence.

This year, the Shoe Memorial partnered with Tk’emlups the Secwepemc for the Red Dress Memorial, meant to remember missing and murdered indigenous women across Canada. The event featured singing and drumming, as well as several speakers who discussed their personal journeys, and the triumphs and tragedies they’ve experienced.

For each pair of shoes, a nameplate. Mothers, daughters, and sisters. Those names are the names of women who were killed as a result of violence.

“Most women face gender-based violence,” Sussanne Skidmore, Secretary-Treasurer for the BC Federation of Labour, told CFJC Today. “We see that disproportionately impacts indigenous women, women of colour, trans folks. We’re still seeing folks falling behind and not getting lifted.”

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Saturday was the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women. For the past 12 years, the Kamloops Shoe Memorial has helped commemorate those women who have lost their lives at the hands of another – usually, a man that woman was close with.

“Sixty-two percent were killed by someone they knew, people who were in their lives,” Skidmore told those gathered at the event. “Thirty-one percent of victims were killed by a family member, thirty-one percent by an intimate partner or spouse.”

This year, the Shoe Memorial was held at Tk’emlups te Secwepemc, who added a splash of colour to the event. The Red Dresses hung throughout Moccasin Square Gardens represented the thousands of Indigenous Women and Girls who have gone missing or been murdered over the years.

“Violence against women and girls, in any form, is completely unacceptable,”Tk’emlups Chief Rosanne Casimir told those at the event. “[It] must not be tolerated- the violence must stop.”

For Casimir, hosting the shoe memorial and red dress memorial together was an important step to encourage healing within the community. She also hopes to do more advance the cause of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women at all levels of government.

“Our community is definitely looking at taking steps and advancing [MMIWG] with the government and with ourselves,” Casimir explained. “Most importantly with ourselves, because we want to ensure that we look at how we heal, how we can provide hope, how we can provide services, but also making sure at the next level that those calls to action are implemented, as well.

For Shelly Saje Ricci, the cycle of violence needs to end. She believes all Canadians need to do more to try and understand what happens, to stop the violence being perpetrated on indigenous women and girls across Canada

“It’s really a time of truth – truth, and reconciliation,” Saje Ricci said. “What we’re doing here is bringing truth, with the memorial, with saying the women’s names. Representing with shoes and dresses on an issue that we need to end violence.”