Canada Rejects Inquiry into Missing, Killed Indigenous Women
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By Staff Writers, teleSUR
teleSUR
Wednesday, Oct 7, 2015
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Vigil for missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada | Photo: |
"Most of these murders, sad as they are, are in fact solved. We are way past the time for further study," said Canada’s prime minister.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper reiterated Tuesday that his government will not conduct a national inquiry into the number of missing and murdered Indigenous women despite the repeated recommendations of local and international human right reports.
In March, the United Nations said Canada violated the rights of Indigenous women by failing to conduct a national investigation into the 1,181 recorded missing or murdered Indigenous women in the country in the past 30 years.
When asked whether Harper would finally launch a public inquiry, he said "most of these murders, sad as they are, are in fact solved” and that “we are way past the time for further study," VICE News reported.
Harper added, "Our government position on this has been very clear. We have moved forward with a whole series of criminal justice reforms that deal with the problems of violence against people generally, violence against women in particular."
The systematic murder and disappearances of Indigenous women, however, is not a criminal problem, according to U.N. researchers.
"The violence inflicted on aboriginal women is often rooted in the deep socio-economic inequalities and discrimination their communities face and which can be traced back to the period of colonization," U.N. committee members Niklas Bruun and Barbare Bailey said back in March.
Another report, released in February by the Legal Strategy Coalition on Violence Against Indigenous Women, said an inquiry is necessary in order to "consolidate and update existing knowledge about the causes of violence against Indigenous women, comprehensively evaluate the adequacy of existing initiatives and programs, and help Canadians and policymakers understand why there has been so much resistance to action to address this issue."
Canada’s Liberal leader Justin Trudeau put his support behind a government-funded inquiry Monday. “If people think they already know what the problem is, then why haven't they fixed it," said Trudeau. "We need a national public inquiry into the tragedy that are the missing and murdered Indigenous girls," he said at a town hall meeting in Toronto hosted by VICE Canada. "We need to get justice for the victims. We need healing for the family. And we need to ensure as a society, as a country, that we stop this ongoing tragedy."
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