"A years-long government inquiry says human rights abuses 'perpetrated historically and maintained today by the Canadian state' has led to violence against Indigenous women and girls that amounts to genocide.
It's the conclusion of more than two years of research involving at least 2,380 people who shared their stories or artwork with the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
At a ceremony detailing the findings early Monday in Gatineau, Quebec, Indigenous community members cheered and wept. Indigenous peoples in Canada have long expressed frustration that violent acts against their communities were not adequately investigated by authorities.
The National Inquiry's full report, which runs over 1,000 pages, also highlights violence against Indigenous 2SLGBTQQIA people, which stands for Two-Spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex and asexual.
'The significant, persistent and deliberate pattern of systemic racial and gendered, human and Indigenous rights violations and abuses — perpetuated historically and maintained today by the Canadian state, designed to displace Indigenous Peoples from their lands, social structures and governance and to eradicate their existence as Nations, communities, families and individuals — is the cause of the disappearances, murders and violence experienced by Indigenous women, girls, 2SLGBTQQIA people, and this is genocide,' Chief Commissioner Marion Buller said at the ceremony.
The steps to end the violence, the report states, 'must be no less monumental than the combination of systems and actions that has worked to maintain colonial violence for generations.'"
Read the full article here. For more information on this topic, see VAWnet's Gender Based Violence and Intersecting Challenges Impacting Native American & Alaskan Village Communities.
