May 5 marks Red Dress Day. Across the country, red dresses are hung in windows, clotheslines, and trees to recognize Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and Two-Spirit Peoples (MMIWG2S).
Despite making up only four per cent of the total adult female population in Canada, Indigenous women make up 10 per cent of the total number of all people who have gone missing in Canada.
Of the nearly 7,000 police-reported female homicides that took place between 1980 and 2014, nearly 16 per cent of the victims were Indigenous women.
The Assembly of First Nations (AFN) is marking the occasion by calling on the new Liberal government to urgently address the 231 Calls for Justice included in the final report of the 2019 National Inquiry Into Missing Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
“In the AFN’s 2024 MMIWG Progress Report, we found that only two of the Calls for Justice impacting First Nations have been fully implemented, with the majority showing minimal or no progress,” said AFN National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak. “With a new federal government in place, Canada has an opportunity to reset and move forward using coordinated, whole-of-government approach that responds to the full scope of the Final Report.”
With an election taking place just one week ago on April 28, Woodhouse Nepinak said that now was the time for the new government to prioritize justice for both victims and their families.
“Prime Minister Carney and his Cabinet should immediately establish a ministerial-level First Nations-Federal-Provincial-Territorial table to assess progress, identify performance measures, and define next steps, guided by First Nations, Survivors, and families, and supported by the resources needed to ensure real progress,” said National Chief Woodhouse Nepinak.
Some steps forward, and some steps back
According to the AFN’s 2024 Progress Report, only two of the Calls for Justice have been implemented, but they did note that since the original report’s release in 2019, that some progress had been made in key areas.
For example, thanks to the efforts of NDP MP Leah Gazan, the federal government announced a national Red Dress Alert pilot program in the spring of 2024.
That program would serve as a hotline for Indigenous women in crisis or experiencing violence.
READ MORE: Red Dress Alert motion receives unanimous support from MPs
In October of 2024, the federal government said that Manitoba would serve as the province that would pilot the program and that the program would be managed by Giganawenimaanaanig, the province’s MMIWG2S+ implementation committee.
There has also been some backsliding on some of the 231 Calls for Justice.
Particularly, 2024 saw a reduction in funding for Family Information Liaison Units (FILUs). The government committed to setting up and funding FILUs to assist the families of missing and murdered Indigenous people. A drop in funding in 2024 led some FILUs to close.
“First Nations families and Survivors have told us what they need,” said AFN PEI Regional Chief Wendell LaBobe, AFN Portfolio Holder for MMIWG2S “They require wrap-around supports, prevention programs, safe spaces for healing, and coordinated responses that reflect their experiences, as articulated in Breathing Life into the Calls for Justice and the Connecting Hearts and Making Change report. We look forward to working with the new federal government, alongside First Nations Survivors and families, to advance this critical work.”
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