by聽Anna Przednowek, PhD student in Social Work, VAW Hub RA
Recently, CFICE’s聽Violence Against Women (VAW) hub community leaders and senior scholars commended Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in a formal letter, for committing to hold a National Inquiry into Missing Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. The VAW hub participants called upon Prime Minister Trudeau to consider putting the (NWAC), a national Aboriginal women鈥檚 organization, in a leadership position for the inquiry process.
This process is especially significant to Aboriginal women and girls, Aboriginal Peoples, Canadian women and people. 鈥淎t its core, the Inquiry is about Aboriginal women鈥檚 and girls鈥� right to substantive equality, safety and security,鈥� reads the letter. The Inquiry itself is also a matter of respect for all Aboriginal women, and should have NWAC playing a lead role in every step of the inquiry process, including the聽implementation of inquiry recommendations. This will hopefully ensure that the process is yet not another example of 鈥渃olonial imperialism and patriarchal dominance鈥�. With the interest of violence against women at its core, the VAW hub stands in solidarity with NWAC. Our members look forward to this process, and see it as a major step towards ending violence against women and girls in Canada.