The Missing
Women
Today in 2021,
This subject has arisen again with more interest being shown
to it. Many of our sisters have been abducted, assaulted, murdered,
and so many are still missing. The organizations below are all
dealing with this in their own way, trying to get awareness
out about this terrible thing happening to the Indigenous women
of the past 30+ years.
Anna Mae Aquash,
a Canadian-born Mikmaq Indian activist may well have been
one of the first. On November 25, 1975 she was found to be missing.
For three months her whereabouts were unknown. On February 24,
1976, her remains were discovered on the Pine Ridge Reservation.
She had been shot.
The
REDress Project
A visual art
installation project with strong ties to the community and broader
public, The REDress Project is based on an aesthetic response
to the more than 500 missing and murdered Aboriginal women in
Canada. Drawing attention to the gendered and racialized nature
of violent crimes against Aboriginal women the installation
seeks to evoke a presence through the marking of absence.
The installation here is a precis of a larger, outdoor work
in which more than 500 red dresses will be installed in an accessible
public site, in an effort at once to remind and incite, to witness
and represent.
Walking
With Our Sisters
Each pair of
moccasin tops are intentionally not sewn into moccasins to represent
the unfinished lives of the women and girls.
This project
is about these women, paying respect to their lives and existence
on this earth. They are not forgotten. They are sisters, mothers,
daughters, cousins, aunties, grandmothers, friends and wives.
They have been cared for, they have been loved, and they are
missing.
Do check out
these organizations, and others that deal with this problem,
and please be careful out there.