Women's Memorial Marches Honour the Lives of Indigenous Women and Girls

29th Women's Memorial March, Vancouver, February 14, 2020.

Memorial marches were held across Canada on February 14 to honour the lives of the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls and to call for an end to the violence against them.

Thousands took part in the 29th annual memorial march in Vancouver which started at the Carnegie Centre in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. This march has taken place every year on Valentine's Day since 1992. Event organizer Evelyne Youngchief said the march this year will honour over 970 women in the Downtown Eastside who have gone missing or been killed. Along the route, stops were made at a number of the locations where women were last seen or were murdered, with ceremonies being performed in their honour.

Memorial marches, vigils and other events also took place in many cities and towns, including Victoria, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Windsor, Toronto and Montreal. Many participants in the marches and vigils across the country bore in mind recent images of the RCMP tearing down the red dresses at the Unist'ot'en camp that had been hung to hold the spirits of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls and two spirit people as they arrested Wet'suwet'en Land Defenders and their chiefs in a most disrespectful and brutal way.

In Toronto, hundreds joined in the 15th annual Strawberry Ceremony outside Toronto Police Headquarters. Family members spoke of their loved ones who have been killed or gone missing. Other speakers called for an end to the conditions faced by Indigenous peoples in Canada that are rooted in the colonial racist policies of the state and its police. They pointed out that the numbers of missing and murdered women continue to increase each year and demanded the indifference and abuse by governments at all levels stop. A march and a round dance that shut down a major intersection followed the ceremony.

More than 80 people gathered at the Human Rights Monument in Ottawa. The rally began with a traditional prayer by a Native elder. Some family members spoke in remembrance of loved ones and pointed out that even though the National Inquiry on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls has been completed and its report issued eight months ago, Indigenous women are still going missing and being murdered. The Canadian government has done nothing to implement any of the report's 231 Calls for Justice, speakers pointed out, and must be held to account. Placards in the rally carried portraits of some of the missing and murdered women and girls and expressed some of the Calls for Justice.

In late 2019, a Families of Sisters in Spirit researcher estimated that since the National Inquiry had begun its mandate in September 2016, at least 140 women and girls had died as a result of homicides, suspicious deaths and deaths in police custody or while in the care of the child welfare system.