More than 300 people gathered Sunday outside police headquarters in Toronto, along with friends and family of murdered and missing indigenous women, for a rally calling for greater public awareness and an end to the battering and slaying of native women.
“The murdered and missing women were loved too,” said Doreen Silversmith, who explained why the annual rally is held on Valentine’s Day. “They have families that truly care for them and love them.”
The No More Silence Network, a grassroots group, organized the event to honour over 500 indigenous women who have been murdered or gone missing over the last 30 years on Turtle Island. In addition to Toronto, rallies took place in other cities across Canada including Vancouver, Victoria, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton, Sudbury, Thunder Bay and London.
“Just think about the ones that we don’t know about,” said Silversmith, alluding to the fact that a lot of the disappearances and murders are not investigated by state authorities. “So the media has a role to highlight this issue.”
In Barriere Lake where a 17-year-old was murdered, she said the coroner’s office refused to release the autopsy results to the family.
At Sunday’s rally, Norma General recalled her granddaughter Tashina who was murdered in 2008. “She was a great woman,” said General, fighting back the tears.
“And she carried such happiness in her heart for others, herself, her mother and her brother. We still miss her today. And our hearts are still heavy even though we know she’s moved on to a better place.”
General’s granddaughter was pregnant when she went missing. During those three months that Tashina was missing, General said, “It felt like the skin was being torn from my body” and has since had to deal with the issues surrounding her granddaughter’s murder.
“We lost a part of our nation,” she said. “We lost a grandson, a great-grandson and my granddaughter and we’ll never see that family grow and develop.”
Nor will Bernice Sampson, whose 7-year-old daughter Katelynne was murdered in 2008 in Toronto’s Parkdale neighbourhood. “I am very grateful to be here to honour Katelynne and the rest of the women this day,” she said.
It’s been a journey of losses for the native people in Canada. They lost their land. They lost their children to residential schools and the Children’s Aid Society. And their parents and their grandparents too. But to know that they’re not alone as they continue their struggle is what sustains them.
“It’s important that we continue,” said Wanda Whitebird. “We’ve been here since the beginning of time and we’re going to be here for a very long time. Our heart is full of pride of who we are and where we come from.”
After listening to speeches, mourners marched from police headquarters to the Coroner’s office where they laid flowers in remembrance of the murdered and missing. For when a woman is lost, future generations are lost too. Future mothers, grandmothers, great-grandmothers.
“And as our sisters across this land walk as we did today, we want them to know that they’re not alone,” she said. “We’re together.”
Click here to see more photos from the rally.
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To get involved with No More Silence come to the New Volunteers Meeting on Sunday, Feb. 28, 2-4pm at the University of Toronto’s Centre for Women and Trans People (CWTP), 563 Spadina Ave (CWTP is wheelchair accessible)
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