The University of Saskatchewan Students’ Union (USSU) hosted its first-ever Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women’s Awareness Week (MMIWAW) earlier this month. The event—which ran from Nov. 16 to 20—featured multiple rallies, speakers, and seminars before culminating with a candlelight vigil.
“The event had to be by the community and for the community, so the planning was quite extensive,” said USSU president Jack Saddleback. “All of the events throughout the week were collaborative in nature and took subcommittees from the overall planning committee to coordinate.”
As an institution in a province with a large amount of violence in the Indigenous community, the University of Saskatchewan was very open to the USSU’s proposal.
“The week garnered a lot of awareness,” Saddleback said. “The U of S community is very supportive in breaking down barriers and addressing issues for Indigenous women, and we feel it is important to stand up in support of these women.”
With the tally of missing or murdered Indigenous women in Canada now pushing 1,200, the issue is beginning to receive more coverage from media.
“We had hundreds of people sign our banner for a call to action to support a national public inquiry, to the point where there was no more room to sign,” Saddleback said. “It was a very successful week.”
While efforts like USSU’s awareness week are a step in the right direction, University of Manitoba (U of M) student body Aboriginal representative Brittany Morrison said she believes awareness on the issue is lacking within the prairie region’s student body.
“It’s something that still doesn’t have enough awareness,” Morrison said. “It’s like anything we hear about on social media, except we hear even less about Aboriginal women.”
However, a 2015 fact sheet from the Native Women’s Association of Canada reported 28 per cent of all missing and murdered Indigenous women cases in the province of Saskatchewan, with a further 14 per cent in Manitoba.
“A few months ago, an elderly white woman, Thelma Krull, went missing and the whole province knew about it,” Morrison said. “There were search parties and gatherings in hopes of finding her, yet there is little done to find the Indigenous women who go missing.”
On Carleton’s campus, two main presentations have attempted to raise awareness of missing and murdered Indigenous women cases this year. Walking With Our Sisters, a touring art display, visited Carleton’s art gallery back in September, serving as both a display of remembrance and a call for awareness. While A Peoples’ Gathering presentation in March provided an oral memorial for all missing and murdered Indigenous women.
