Shirley McLean
APTN National News
British Columbia’s advocate for children in care says the pathways to becoming a missing or murdered Aboriginal female most often includes abuse and neglect.
“I think a national strategy is needed, meaning that we are getting there well in advance of these young people (becoming) victims. I think we need to understand their pathway in how they get there,” said Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond. “And we need to disrupt that pathway.”
On any given day there are about 1,000 children in care of the B.C. government and 50 per cent are Aboriginal says Turpel-Lafond.
Turpel-Lafond says her office has investigated hundreds of reports of abuse against Aboriginal girls.
Stronger systems are needed, she says, like better on-reserve schooling, education on how to deal with trauma and stronger family supports for kids in care.
“We make sure that they get what any other Canadian child should get, which is a loving supported home … a good start in life, with education and health and knowing that they are accepted, loved and belong,” said Turpel-Lafond. “We just can’t abandon another generation of kids to sub-standard systems, poor healthcare, no mental health support (and) no addictions support.”
She hopes for a national strategy to address factors that lead so many Indigenous children to become part of a growing list of murdered and missing.
In May, an RCMP report revealed nearly 1,200 Indigenous women and girls had been murdered or went missing between 1980 and 2012. The report found Indigenous women are five times more likely to be murdered than non-Indigenous women.
NDP leader Tom Mulcair said Wednesday his party will call a national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women within 100 days in power.
“Enough is enough. (Prime Minister) Stephen Harper has made it clear he has no intention of doing the right thing,” said Mulcair in his statement. “But I can promise that if the NDP forms government in 2015 we will launch an investigation into murdered and missing Indigenous women.”
Harper has refused to call an inquiry.
He recently said each case should be handled as a crime, not a “sociological phenomenon.”
– with APTN National News files.
