Report about violence against Downtown Eastside women calls for change

“Our most pressing recommendation that all 128 collaborators and participants were unanimous on was active Indigenous women’s leadership in all levels of decision making and full Indigenous jurisdiction over Indigenous lands and services and laws,” she said.

Walia said that would mean the full adoption of the United Nation’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.

Other recommendations include safe housing for every single Indigenous women on and off reserve, an end to all child apprehensions, a slew of legislative reform, and the establishment of an Indigenous women’s centre on the Downtown Eastside run by and for women.

The 220-page report comes as the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls is expected to release its own final report this month.

Inquiry chief commissioner Marion Buller had requested a two year extension last year, but the federal government allotted six months.

The Vancouver women’s centre has standing in the inquiry and is submitting the report to the inquiry for consideration.

Walia said the report is unprecedented because it is rooted in the experiences of women on the Downtown Eastside, the neighbourhood where serial killer Robert Pickton found many of his victims.

She said the report also looks at a range of issues beyond physical violence: from housing and poverty to policing and child apprehensions.

Grand Chief Stewart Phillip of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs says the report is “timely,” as it comes the day after former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould, who is Indigenous, was ejected from the Liberal caucus.

Reconciliation has to come from the grassroots up and not the top down, he said, which is why the recommendations of a report based on contributions from so many women on the Downtown Eastside should be taken seriously.

Several of the report contributors said they don’t know what to expect from the national inquiry, but it’s important for the recommendations to be concrete and not abstract, and for the federal government to actually act on them instead of allowing them to gather dust on a shelf.

Sophie Merasty, a Cree contributor to Red Women Rising, said she doesn’t expect an overhaul of the system to occur overnight, but she expects legal changes.

“Some serious laws need to be changed and the way the justice system is served to Indigenous people,” she said.

Merasty said her sister was killed on the Downtown Eastside in 1991 when she was pushed from a window and fell to the alley below. Her perpetrator was convicted of aggravated assault instead of manslaughter and he was released from custody after six months due to time already served, she said.

Change will involve addressing issues like the overrepresentation of Indigenous youth in prisons and the “astronomical” number of Indigenous children who are removed from their families and communities, she said.

Report co-author Carol Muree Martin said Indigenous women need to heal, while the Canadian culture that stereotypes and disrespects Indigenous women needs to change.

“It’s so thick within this Canadian system. We all need to roll up our sleeves and start doing something about it,” she said.

Amy Smart, The Canadian Press

by Canadian Press

Report about violence against Downtown Eastside women calls for change

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