Hundreds turn out in Yellowknife to march against violence on Red Dress Day

Hundreds of people marched from the NWT Legislative Assembly through downtown Yellowknife on Tuesday to mark the 16th Red Dress Day in Canada.

Speaking to the gathering at the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Monument in front of the NWT Legislative Assembly Building, grandmother, mother, artist and advocate Gerri Sharpe called on lawmakers in the North to stop sending Indigenous women down south for medical appointments, housing or education, as they can be preyed on by criminals.

“We place them at risk — we put them in an environment that they’re unfamiliar with and unable to access the help that they’re used to here in the Northwest Territories and in Nunavut,” said the former president of Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada.

“If I’m in need here in Yellowknife, I know exactly where to go. I can go next door to my neighbour, I can go to my work, I can go anywhere and ask for help, and I’ll get it. That’s not the same for the South. In the South, I would be ignored.

“How many women, how many children, how many grandparents, how many LGBTQIA people are we going to continue to lose before we stop this? There are people, there are women that have been being sent for treatment in the South that don’t return because they are treated like victims.

“They are seen as victims. They are looked at as prey. They are looked at as a source for human trafficking, for the simple pleasures of a man.”

Sharpe said that having grown up in Nunavut as well as the Northwest Territories — and after living in communities of all sizes in the South — she keeps returning to the North.

“I keep coming home because nowhere else in Canada can I walk down the street and everybody knows who I am, or who my family is, or where I come from, because that’s what it’s like in the Northwest Territories,” she said.

“I look around and I see familiar faces. I know their families, I know their children and their parents. I know where they come from and I know what they do. It’s that togetherness that is completely absent when we send women and LGBTQIA people South.

“We need to take care of our people here in the North, the way the North does it, the way the North makes you feel like family, the way the North embraces you.”

Teresa Joyce, of the Status of Women Council of the NWT, said everyone needs to recognize the violence, harm and death that our women, girls and two-spirit people continue to experience on a daily basis.

“The statistics are alarming — Indigenous women who make up less than 5% of the Canadian population disproportionately account for 34% of female homicide victims, highlighting the severity of the crisis Canada, said Joyce.

She continued: “More than 63% of Indigenous women have experienced physical or sexual assault in their lifetime. The impact of these disproportionately high rates of violence is felt in all areas of life and impacts us all.”

“We stand in solidarity with the families and communities who continue in the pursuit of justice, healing and change.”

Nationally, the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples called on all Canadians to stand in solidarity this Red Dress Day and to demand meaningful action on the 231 Calls for Justice from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

“This is not just a headline, it is a relentless grief that Indigenous families carry every day,” National Chief Brendan Moore stated in a release. “Canada has made countless promises, but words are not enough.

“Families deserve answers. Communities deserve safety. And Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people deserve justice, dignity, and protection.

“This is a human rights crisis. And it is happening here. In Canada. Right now. We will not be silent.”