Native Women's Association of Canada

The Native Women's Association of Canada (NWAC) is an organization of indigenous Canadian women, especially the First Nations and the Métis . The women of the third indigenous group in Canada, the Inuit , created their own organization called Pauktuutit .

history

The NWAC emerged in 1974 from the union of 13 indigenous women's groups. The organization is led by a president and a board of directors . Beverley Jacobs has been President since 2004. In addition to the initially dominant issues of the legal situation of indigenous women, in particular the question of the loss of Indian status (see Indian Act ), the situation has shifted insofar as the focus is on education opportunities alongside violence against indigenous women.

In the legal dispute over the participation of the women's organization in the negotiations for the Charlottetown Accord , the Native Women's Association of Canada v. Canada 1994. The question was whether the Canadian government was obliged to provide material support to a group on constitutional issues and to let them speak for their ethnic group.

Bertha Clark, a former president of NWAC, was inducted into Canada's highest order, the Order of Canada , on February 22, 2008 for her services .

In 2009, Jeannette Corbiere Lavell was elected President.

Unresolved violence against indigenous women

→ Main article : Disappeared indigenous women in Canada

The organization has been conducting vigils (Sisters In Spirit vigils) since 2004, which took place in 11 locations in 2006, and 69 in 2009. The organization has documented around 520 cases, but suspects numerous other cases in which indigenous women were murdered or missing . For example, nine women disappeared on Highway 16 in northern British Columbia alone. The watch takes place on October 4th every year, and the participants are dressed in black. Amnesty International lamented the government's shocking failure to clear up the cases in a 2004 report ("Stolen Sisters": Discrimination and Violence against Indigenous Women in Canada). A 2007 report lamented the inaction of the authorities, but also the marginalization of women, and suggested that both encourage perpetrators to commit crimes. In addition, there is a clearing-up rate of only 52% in these cases of the "Soeurs volées", a figure that is around 80% on the national average for murders of other victims.

literature

• Joan Sangster: Criminalizing the Colonized: Ontario Native Women Confront the Criminal Justice System, 1920-1960 , in: Canadian Historical Review 80.1 (March 1999) pp. 32-60.

See also

• First Nations history

Web links

• Website of the Association
• The long, hard road of Sharon McIvor , in: Vancouver Sun, November 9, 2007
• Missing or Murdered Indigenous Women in Canada , website of missingnativewomen.org

Remarks

1. ↑ The judgment can be found here: Decision of the Supreme Court of October 27, 1994 ( Memento of May 6, 2009 in the Internet Archive ).
2. ↑ Cf. Governor General to invest 37 recipients into the Order of Canada .
3. ↑ Vigil to honor slain, missing aboriginal women , in: Times-Colonist, October 2, 2009 ( Memento of October 14, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
4. ↑ Canada. Stoles sisters (PDF, 1.3 MB) ( Memento from February 27, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
5. ↑ Native families demand answers. Vigil for missing, murdered aboriginal women keeps push on for more government action , in: The Star, October 3, 2009