Canada chief laments ‘failure’ over violence against Indigenous women

OTTAWA: Canada has failed to address violence against Indigenous women and girls five years after it was declared a national tragedy and a genocide in a report, a First Nations chief said on Monday.

Ottawa accepted all 231 recommendations outlined in the 2019 report by the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls aimed at improving security, justice, health and culture for Canada´s Indigenous people.

But so far only two of these have been fully implemented. “It is difficult when you see results like these today,” Assembly of First Nations National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak told a news conference, with the majority of the calls for justice “showing minimal to no progress.”

“This failure is not acceptable to our people. I hope it is not acceptable to other Canadians either,” she said, urging “more political will” and for all Canadians to “stand with us.” The national inquiry identified at least 1,200 Indigenous women who were killed or went missing between 1980 and 2012, and concluded that this amounted to genocide.