Women ‘Take Back The Night’ In Prince George
Take Back The Night participants head out from City Hall under a fiery sunset 250News photo
Prince George, BC – While the annual Take Back The Night rally and march is meant to raise awareness about the need to end violence against all women, speakers at this year’s 22nd annual event shone a spotlight on Aboriginal women and older women.
"In relationships, Aboriginal women are eight times more likely to be killed by a partner than non-Aboriginal women," Crystal Phillips told those gathered on the lawn at City Hall last night.
Phillips, who has her Masters in Womens Studies, pointed to the 600 cases of missing and murdered Aboriginal women documented by the Native Women’s Association of Canada. "If we were to proportionately apply this figure to the rest of the female population, there would be close to 20-thousand missing Canadian women and girls."
Phillips (at left) pointed out the Committee for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls was dissolved with the prorogation of Parliament and said there’s no commitment on the part of the Harper Government to reinstate it in the fall session.
"Yes, violence against Aboriginal women is an Aboriginal issue and it affects our families and communities," she said, "But it is also a Canadian issue that affects all of us as Canadians."
"We need to demand that our government take action – it is our responsibility to give voice to those that have been silenced," Phillips urged. "We need to understand violence against women as a Human Rights issue."
The Chair of UNBC’s School of Social Work, Dawn Hemingway, called on rally participants to think particularly about the situation being faced by older women.
Hemingway said there is very little in the way of research looking into the situation being faced by women over the age of 49, despite the fact there were 720-million women around the world in that age category in 2010, and an expected 970-million by 2020.
"This means that the violence and abuse that millions of women may be experiencing is not only going unrecorded, but that millions and millions of women are not having their rights – their right to know that they live in safety and freedom from violence – addressed by their provincial, federal and other governments," she said. (in photo at right)
"And we know that in Northern British Columbia, we have the fastest growing older population in this province," Hemingway added. "So to not address the issue of violence and safety of older women in a really profound way is a crime."
She ended with the rally, ‘Women unite, take back the night,’ and the crowd moved out to march through the city’s downtown core.
Comments
“In relationships, Aboriginal women are eight times more likely to be killed by a partner than non-Aboriginal women”
So who can do something about that? Very difficult for government to take preventative measures. The way I see it, it is a social problem within the community involved.
I can’t dictate what happens in the native community or family units. Neither can anyone else other than those living in that environment.
If any “government” can do something about it, it is the First Nations own governing structures.
I suggest we start by the “protests” or “awareness raising events” happen in the communities affected. Has that ever happened?
If the UN looks at this as the aboriginals still being under the protection of the country of Canada, then we have another problem of people having a right to self determination and Canada has a duty to make sure that all people within the country are treated equally to having that right.
A catch 22, no doubt.
This is a very hot potato —- I expect just making any comment at all will invite criticism — but—–
There is always a demand for the government to take action —- exactly what measures could government take? . More severe punishment after the fact? Insert government more deeply into family relations – how?
I suspect that there are no answers that will solve the problem without affecting personal freedoms, somewhere along the line, that would be unacceptable to many if not most people.
I hope to see some constructive comments.
End the violence? Respect one another? Take back the night? I’ll get right on that after I “Free Tibet”. There are so many social injustices in the world, instead of campaigning for one, I can spend my life listing them. But like I said, I’ll get right on it. Watch me change people AND the world.
What is everyone carrying on about? Jobs and the economy is where it is at… jobs and the economy solves everything according to Harpy and Christy ;-)
What’s the matter, People#1? You couldn’t address the points made in the first two posts so you had to take one of your daily vague shots at the government?
The thing People#1 does not understand is that the government is able to assist with the jobs and economic improvement.
What they cannot do is get into the various ethnic communities to proactively change the way those communities deal with each other.
will, I guess there will be no more night, just all day now.
Well, I guess it’s time to educate a couple of people on the issue of Violence Against Women!
Did you know the violence prevention and counselling service providers in this city are under attack through lack of funding?
Read the following PG Citizen editorial and scroll down through the comments section and read a letter to Mayor Shari Green and Council from the Phoenix Transition House.
http://www.princegeorgecitizen.com/article/20130827/PRINCEGEORGE0302/308279981/-1/princegeorge/name-withheld
It’s not just the city cutting funding and increasing taxes to our non-profit agencies in this city, try the Provincial Government who reneged on their signed agreement to provide 33% of gaming revenue back into the communities non-profit agencies.
http://www.plankmagazine.com/thots/open-letter-minister-rich-coleman-susan-marsden-president-bc-association-charitable-gaming
This government is starving our non-profit agencies like; the Elizabeth Fry Society, Phoenix Transition House Surpassing Our Survival Society, PG Family Crisis Centre and Nezul Be Hunuyeh Child and Family Services of much needed funding!
So yeah, I have no problem taking another “shot” at this government!!!
So people are you implying that no jobs or no economy will solve social ills? How did you get that so backward? Must be educated.
Resource development is highly correlated with domestic violence and substance abuse in small communities. Don’t for a moment think that BC’s Jobs Plan won’t have profound consequences on women in northern communities.
I see the comments coming but nothing that refutes the “FACTS” that I presented!
I find it disgusting and immoral that a government would renege on a funding agreement with the non-profit registered charitable organization of this province!
Imagine the BILLIONS of dollars that should have been provided to our non-profit organizations under a 33.3% of gaming revenue funding arrangement instead of the pathetic 10% they receive today!
A government “starving” the organizations who are in the business of helping people like battered women, such a “honourable” government that we have. How can anyone justify or defend this????
Is the word “FACTS” in quotes for a reason?
Not sure why you think throwing money at a problem will make it go away. The problems are far deeper than that and need to be dealt with in the communities themselves, and not laid at the feet of the big bad government. I wouldn’t expect you to get that, though.
“Is the word “FACTS” in quotes for a reason”
Yes, People#1 knows it is a relative term. His POV on what is a “fact” is different from the POVs of others.
JB (sack of hammers) I would expect his kind of response, but you gus, no intelligent retort from you supported by researched facts?
@ curmudgeonscurse; don’t pin your hopes on the Liberal’s BC Jobs Plan!
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/08/09/bc-job-losses_n_3733247.html
Besides, haven’t you heard? Domestic violence is intergenerational, in other words children who grow up watching or even hearing their mothers or fathers being beat on, tend to exhibit and propagate that violence in their own relationships as adults, and that has nothing to do with Jobs and the Economy!
Addressing the aboriginal issue as one that is different from the non-aboriginals. Both share the poverty issue, however. But the aboriginals have had their self-esteem removed by the church as well as the government in an attempt to sanitize them of their aboriginal ancestry.
There is a different type of march happening in the lower mainland. BUT, the lower mainland and the northern interior are two totally different solitudes.
So, from that “march”, ML King’ daughter said reconciliation of past wrongs will bring healing, but empowering people with economic opportunities is the key to their well-being.
“My father, if you study his life’s work, was in the midst of addressing economic injustice. In fact, he saw economic injustice as inseparable twins and so he spent the last three years of his life really raising the issue and talked about it during the poor people’s campaign that he was crusading for when he was assassinated in Memphis.”
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/king-s-daughter-calls-residential-abuse-inexcusable-1.1863547
“We’ve created, as my father said, this wonderful house, this wonderful neighbourhood, but we have not found a way to create a brother and sisterhood. And if we don’t, we’re going to perish together as fools.”
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So, in my view jobs and the economy will assist in fighting some social problems we have. BUT, the opportunities must be equitable and must fit the individual social groups and include them in that effort.
I can immediately think of one effort we are ambivalent about – consultation with First Nations. There is no clear definition of what that means.
Feeding money to any group is useless if the group is not capable of putting the money to the best use to increase their stature with respect to others around them.
The civil war in the USA happened 150 years ago. Blacks in the states have come a long way from those days, but most of the improvement towards equity have taken place in the past 50 years. There are still vestiges of inequity.
To think that we will solve the problems with the aboriginal communities in the country faster than that is to not understand that the nature of the problem.
Until we do, and there are very few signs that we do, nothing will change. All the money in the world and petty little programs thrown at a variety of not for profits will not solve a dam thing!!
I am crossing my fingers that we are starting to finally realize that.
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I am a believer in the Chinese proverb: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”
Associate that proverb with the aboriginals and we can see that they knew how to “fish” in their social and environmental condition.
However, they was never any serious effort put into teaching them how to do “fish” or survive in our social and environmental condition. Some learned, others did not.
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