A second-year women’s and gender studies class became a part of a city-wide awareness project March 19 by making faceless dolls to represent the hundreds of missing and murdered aboriginal women.
“The dolls remain faceless so that the family of the loved one can imagine their face,” explained Jennifer Lord, a spokesperson for the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC), who led the in-class presentation.
Lord said she hopes that 582 dolls, to represent the 582 known cases of missing and murdered aboriginal women, will eventually be made and travel across the country to be viewed by Canadians from coast-to-coast.
The goal, she said, is to raise awareness of extreme violence against aboriginal women and girls.
In the past two weeks, the NWAC has held workshops in the city during which students and families from the community have come together to make the faceless felt dolls, which represent the hundreds of aboriginal women and girls that have been sexually assaulted, disappeared and murdered.
“We’re talking about the devaluing of aboriginal women and girls in our society,” said Lord, who is also Métis. “At one point, aboriginal women and girls were highly valued, but as an impact of colonization, we no longer have that kind of value.”
In her presentation, Lord highlighted colonization, the residential school system, poverty and societal ignorance as some of the root causes of violence against aboriginal women. Through the faceless dolls project, she said she hopes to educate people and to put an end to this issue.
As Lord ended her presentation, she told the class the best ways to get involved are through education, awareness and action.
“Educate yourself,” she said. “Find out what the aboriginal women say is happening.”
Violence against aboriginal women is one of the most important issues for feminists to think about today, according to professor Aalya Ahmad, who invited Lord to her class.
“I thought [the presentation] was wonderful . . . doing hands-on activism is the only way to learn,” Ahmad said.
