Canada Isn't Protecting Its Indigenous Women

Canada may be an independent state now, but its colonial past is still present today. With its shameful mandate of residential schools to “civilize” Indigenous children, it laid the foundation for their systemic oppression. An example of this is the crisis surrounding the murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls (MMIWG). The Royal Canadian Mounted Police reported in 2014 that there had been 1,200 MMIWG from 1980 to 2012. However, activists and organizations suggest that there are over 4,000 cases. The vast difference in cases lies with the lack of faith Indigenous women feel towards police when reporting an incident, this leads to under-reporting and inaccurate statistics. Indigenous communities are a vulnerable subset of society, but Indigenous women specifically experience high and disproportionate rates of violence. Canada’s human rights record has been under fire because of these experiences of Indigenous women.

Many organizations have criticized Canada for the lack of commitment to Indigenous women’s rights, stemming from Article 2,3, 5 and 14 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Canada signed onto the Convention in 1980, its ratification came in 1981, and the Optional Protocol in 2002. Under CEDAW, it requires States to take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women; to modify practices, and to consider specific issues women experience living in rural and remote areas. Violence against women is a huge issue for Indigenous women in Canada, and in many other parts of the world, however gender-based violence is not explicitly covered in CEDAW. This was rectified within General Recommendation No. 35, which is to be read in conjunction with CEDAW. This General Recommendation has been updated from its predecessor, General Recommendation No. 19, which originally established gender-based violence to be a form of discrimination against women. The difference between the two, is that No. 35 requires there to be state obligation to tackle violence against women. It is important to note, Canada adopted the Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Persons in May 2016, after rejecting it for a number of years, it seems its heart is in the right place, but it lacks real and effective action.

Canada has only recently begun to address Indigenous issues through Trudeau’s government, who established a National Inquiry into MMIWG, to counter those CEDAW criticisms. Its mandate is to examine the underlying factors that contribute to violence against Indigenous women and to examine policies and practices in response to this violence. The national inquiry has until April 30, 2019, to conclude its research. With its small timeframe to unpack colonialism, it cannot possibly conceptualize the intergenerational trauma endured by the Indigenous women into a few reports, and if those findings can even provide effective solutions for dismantling systemic oppression. The examination of policies and practices in responding to violence is another difficult task for the inquiry. Whether their reports can create change that will have the reach to modify long-standing police procedures, is also in question. It is for these reasons that the national inquiry cannot qualify as an appropriate measure set out in CEDAW.

The lack of serious action from the justice system regarding discriminatory treatment of Indigenous women is highly problematic. The silencing of these issues has had a normalizing effect, that only furthers negative stereotypes of Indigenous women, and has life-threatening consequences, due to police abuses and ill-treatment of them. In 2017, Human Rights Watch made a submission to the Government of Canada regarding this issue of police abuse. They found that Indigenous women in Saskatchewan would not report a crime against them or a crime involving an Indigenous woman in fear of police retaliation.

According to Human Rights Watch, Indigenous women’s interaction with police involve a wide array of abusive behaviour; neglect when reporting domestic violence, inappropriate and invasive body and strip searches, sexual harassment, physical harassment and assault. How can Canada fulfill its CEDAW obligations, when police practices have yet to be modified, violence is still imminent, and it still disproportionately affects Indigenous women. Canada is shielding itself with the national inquiry, equating it with fulfilling its Indigenous obligations, but on closer inspection, the issues surrounding police practices towards Indigenous women remain the same.