Amnesty International report set to embarrass Canada
CBC.CA
Last Updated Sun, 03 Oct 2004 20:20:08 EDT
OTTAWA - A report on hundreds of missing and murdered native women will on Monday to shine a light on the poor state of native women's welfare in Canada.
· INDEPTH:
Aboriginal Canadians·
FROM JULY 2, 2004: Amnesty looking into cases of missing aboriginal womenAmnesty International's key findings suggest that Canada fails to provide native women with adequate protection.
In addition, it posits that the precarious social and economic status of native women in Canada pushes them into dangerous situations including poverty, homelessness and prostitution.
As a result, the report says, first nations women are vulnerable to "acts of extreme brutality."
Moreover, whether or not the attackers are motivated by racism, Amnesty believes they can count on a society that does not value native women highly enough to demand justice when they are killed.
In producing the report, Amnesty worked with Sisters in Spirit, a campaign launched by the Native Women's Association of Canada (NWAC) to try and draw attention to missing women.
NWAC says that more than 500 aboriginal women have disappeared over the past 20 years.
Some 50 women, mostly native, are missing from the Vancouver region alone.
Written by CBC News Online staff
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