When an outsider paints the DTES missing women

This story is Part One in a three-part series on the cancellation of Pamela Masik’s “The Forgotten” portrait collection from the UBC Museum of Anthropology, originally scheduled to run February 15 – March 21, 2011.

Kelly Parkatti
Posted: Feb 8th, 2011


Last night I spoke at a National Conference at SFU talking about 'The Forgotten” Project. There was so much hostility in the room by a group of women from the DTES [Downtown Eastside]…These women are so drowned in their own stories and take claim on the loss of lives, passionately taking ownership of any of the inherent problems that were the cause of this tragedy… These women are so blind and deaf to any greater perspective on the issues, that illustrate they are not theirs to own. -  Pamela Masik’s blog post “The Conference Was Hijacked,” August 14, 2010


Full Article:
http://www.vancouverobserver.com/politics/investigations/2011/02/08/when-outsider-paints-dtes-missing-women

Missing women's initiative in limbo as memorial marches approach.

By Mia Rabson, Winnipeg Free PressFebruary 13, 2010 12:27 AM

In October 2008, people marched in Saskatoon for the national vigil "Sisters in Spirit". This year's march may also become a memorial for a government-funded research project that put a spotlight on the hundreds of aboriginal women who have gone missing or were murdered in this country.

Photograph by: Greg Pender, Star Phoenix

OTTAWA — Missing and murdered women in Canada will be remembered Sunday in memorial that marches across the country.

But the occasion may also become a memorial for a government-funded research project that put a spotlight on the hundreds of aboriginal women who have gone missing or were murdered in this country.

Federal funding for the Sisters in Spirit initiative of the Native Women's Association of Canada runs out March 31, and the federal government has not given the group any indication whether its mandate will be extended.

"We haven't heard anything," said Sisters in Spirit director Kate Rexe. "The government is silent on the issue."

With a grant of $5 million, Sisters in Spirit has spent the past five years compiling a database of more than 520 women who have disappeared or been killed over the past four decades.

The group has developed policies and programs it says are meant to help stop the cycle of violence.

Rexe said the agency is prepared to begin implementing policies and community programs aimed at three specific areas — the justice system, child welfare and poverty. But that's been on hold for months because Ottawa won't say if it plans to keep funding the work.

"It's unbelievably frustrating," Rexe said. "We have all the knowledge, the momentum. We can actually start to implement change, but we don't even know if we can keep planning."

A year ago, Status of Women Minister Helena Guergis said she was working on extending the project.

"I want you to know, I've already engaged in the process of what Sisters in Spirit Two would look like," Guergis said at the Status of Women committee meeting Feb. 12, 2009.

But a spokeswoman for Guergis would not say Friday whether funding for Sisters in Spirit is forthcoming, and said in an e-mail Ottawa has asked NWAC to share its database with police.

"Research conducted by SIS thus far has been aimed at informing policy recommendations and identifying future directions. There are currently four provincial investigations ongoing which the RCMP is participating in. At Minister Guergis' direction, NWAC will be consulting with the RCMP to cross reference their list with ongoing investigations," wrote Emily Goucher.

She also said the Status of Women office spent $21 million since 2007 on 117 projects that address violence against women.

Rexe said she's angry at a federal government that "has been spending like drunken sailors with their economic action plan and now with a huge deficit are talking about cuts."

"We have been working for over a year to get a commitment to the life chances and access to justice for aboriginal women, girls and the families of victims, and we are still waiting."

She said the Sisters office couldn't even help organize this year's Women's Memorial March in Ottawa because staff are too busy wrapping up loose ends and searching for other funding. Eight cities across Canada are to hold marches on Valentine's Day.

Sisters in Spirit has painted a rather bleak picture of aboriginal women's lives. Rexe said Canadian crime statistics show that aboriginal identity is the strongest predictor of violent crime.

Aboriginal women are more than three times as likely as other Canadian women to experience violence and those between age 25 and 44 are five times more likely to die a violent death than non-aboriginal women in that age group.

Manitoba MP and Liberal status of women critic Anita Neville said she doesn't understand why Ottawa won't commit to extending Sisters.

"We have called for a renewal for funding to Sisters in Spirit and for a national investigation (into the missing and murdered women)," Neville said. "But money is tight, and I don't know what (the government) will do."

© Copyright (c) Winnipeg Free Press

The Vancouver Sun

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Media Invited to Stand with Missing and Murdered Women

Press asked to be part of the change, not perpetuate the problem

by Moira Peters →Original Peoples, →Media Analysis, →Politics, →2010 Olympics

"I grew up as a little girl not trusting those who were supposed to be looking after me. I was brought up to be ashamed of who I was. It took me years to feel good in this body, to accept that these brown hands are mine. Finally, I can say I am proud to be an Indigenous woman."

Carol Martin, a victim services worker at the Downtown Eastside Women's Centre, was one of four Indigenous women "honouring" the media this morning at the Carnegie Theatre on East Hastings Street in Vancouver.

Martin, along with Mona Woodward of the Rain City Housing Coalition, Fay Blaney, founder of the Aboriginal Women's Action Network and Dalannah Bowen, Director of Interurban Gallery, invited media to a press conference in lieu of including the press in the February 14 march to honour 3,000 murdered and missing women in Canada.

Journalists are not permitted to attend the ceremony in the Carnegie Theatre at noon on Valentine's Day, and are asked not to film or snap pictures during the march, when friends and families of murdered and missing women will stop to perform healing ceremonies at sites where women have died.

"Nineteen years ago, a Coast Salish woman's body was found in parts in Victoria. She had been mutilated. The memorial for her death lasted 10 minutes," said Blaney. "The community [of Indigenous women] here recognized there's a lot of that."

Eighteen years ago, the first women's memorial march was organized.

"We want to uphold the memorial part of it, to extend respect to the families," she said. Even the organizers of the march, many of whom are political activists, do not bring their politics to the march.

Owen, on behalf of the women giving the press conference and women everywhere, called on the media to "be part of the change, not perpetuate the problem."

The problem – that the list of murdered and missing women, most of them Indigenous, has reached 3,000 since the 1970s; that the list is growing; and that there has not yet been a public inquiry into any of the cases – is exacerbated, according to Owen, by a media that misrepresents the stories of women beaten, violated, kidnapped and murdered across Canada.

Indigenous women in Canada deal with more health problems and homelessness than any other demographic group. "Our children are being taken away from us; our women are being killed," said Martin. "We are homeless in the very country that gets rich on our land."

With billions being spent on the Olympics this year in Vancouver, Owens said, Canadians need to "examine the other side of the coin." Why, when so many public resources are being spent on the 2010 Games, has there not even been a public inquiry into the systematic violence suffered by the most vulnerable Canadians?

If we live in a democracy, said Owens, where is equality? Where is justice?

"Media is a powerful vehicle. We challenge you to give this profile its proper due. Stand with us," she said.

March organizers were asked whether the Olympics in Vancouver would draw attention to – or by the same token, detract from – attention to the march because people would be focused on Vancouver and the Games.

"Our march happens to fall on the same day as the beginning of the Olympic Games. We're not going to strain our brains over it," said Martin.

"We would suggest we will have more people than ever," said Owen. "Not only is the world watching, but women of the world know this issue."

The Vancouver Organizing Committee for the Olympics (VANOC) had suggested the march change its route, which has remained constant for 19 years. In response, 4,000 signatures in support of the march keeping to its original route were collected in less than three days.

Valentine's Day solidarity marches are expected in Toronto, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Sudbury, London, Montreal and Victoria.

"This is about living with dignity and respect in our daily lives," said Owen. "As long as we keep working, the story will be told."

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The 19th annual Women's Memorial March will begin at 1pm on February 14 at Carnegie Theatre. March organizers will host a media scrum at 11:15 am on the Carnegie patio, and the march will end at Oppenheimer Park. Photograph by Murray Bush.

Vancouver Media Co-op

http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/story/2671