Apr 192013
 
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Aboriginal women five to seven times more likely than other women to die as a result of violence.

from Vue Weekly

"Charmaine Desa would have been 43 this year had she not been beaten to death so badly in 1990 that her sister Colleen Cardinal couldn't recognize her face. Last week in Edmonton — the same city that Desa was murdered in 23 years ago — the Native Women's Association of Canada and the Assembly of First Nations held the National Forum on Community Safety and Ending Violence in response to the worrying trends of murdered aboriginal women.

"Aboriginal women are five to seven times more likely than other women to die as a result of violence, but the statistic has yet to be taken seriously by the general public or the federal government. And through it all, stories like those of Desa are lost or misrepresented. As Desa's sister Cardinal explains, the full context goes back even further. Plains Cree and daughters of a mother who went through a residential school, Cardinal and her sisters were part of the Sixties Scoop: a government program that saw thousands of aboriginal children removed from their biological homes and placed in foster families — usually white. The program began in the '60s, but lasted as long as the '80s. Decades later, many of those affected have come together and taken to the courts, filing a class action lawsuit. …"

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© Copyright 2013 Vue Weekly, All rights Reserved. Written For: StraightGoods.ca
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