Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women & Girls

Mag Cywink knows the pain of losing a loved one to violence: her sister Sonya, 31, was brutally murdered in 1994 and her killer never caught. For Cywink, and the families of the 1,181 aboriginal women and girls who have died or gone missing since 1980, there is no closure.

Queen's Park will commit $100 million in new funding to tackle violence against First Nations women. Premier Kathleen Wynne said the province will not wait until the upcoming national inquiry into the hundreds of murdered and missing indigenous women to move forward.

Peterborough's STRUTT Central has launched an "Unmask the silence" campaign to raise awareness about the number of Indigenous women who are going missing and being murdered at a much higher rate than other women in Canada -a rate so high it constitutes nothing less than a national human rights crisis.

A handmade quilt honouring the memories of British Columbia's missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls is helping their loved ones heal. The colourful patchwork quilt unveiled at the B.C. Legislature on Tuesday is made up of 90 blocks crafted by families who have lost mothers, sisters, daughters and aunts.

Faces of missing and murdered indigenous women are popping up on vacant buildings in Regina and Toronto. The portraits are part of a global art project called Inside Out started by French street artist JR. People from all over the world send JR portraits that he prints into pasteable posters to be publicly displayed.

The Anishinabek Nation in Ontario is creating a blanket of hope using donated earrings to represent missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada. The collection of 1,181 single earrings will be pinned to a pink Pendleton blanket to be housed in the Anishinabek Nation offices at Nipissing First Nation, near North Bay.

This time of the year is never easy for Kwakwaka'wakw mother Roxana Wilson. For the past decade, every two years as the month of March approaches, she has braced herself to address the man that brutally murdered her six-year-old daughter Adriane Cecile Wadhams. "It's a tremendous pain, especially knowing everything, how he took my baby's life and I keep those details from my children," Wilson said from her home in Fort Rupert, B.C.

Halifax community members gathered on Wednesday to weave a 10-foot dream catcher to honour missing and murdered aboriginal women. The Mi'kmaq Native Friendship Centre on Gottingen Street hosted the event with support from the Public Service Alliance of Canada.

A Winnipeg photographer has used a 175-year-old photo technique to capture the strength of Manitoba's Indigenous women and girls. Jon Adaskin's photo series, Dignity, went on display at the Haberdashery on Albert Street this week. Adasking photographed 20 Indigenous women and girls who had loved ones who had either been murdered or gone missing.

To honour our Mother I attended a pre-inquiry for the Murdered & Missing Indigenous Women. At that point I was given hope until I came home and I was informed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police my Mother's files had been purged/destroyed. So my little hope was instantly torn away.

On November 23rd, 2014, musicians and artists in Winnipeg came together, along with community members and families of missing and murdered indigenous women, to stand in unity, and to say loudly, with one voice, "We Care!" We Care photos by Dollybird Photography and Design Wow, I was so, so moved by this event.

Enter Indigenous dance troupe Butterflies in Spirit and Filipinx collective Kathara. United in their concern for women and their drive to get the stories of MMIW and sexual abuse out in the open, they recently collaborated on a performance in Vancouver meant to inspire healing and focus our attention on these crucial issues. In this video by filmmaker Mangla Bansal, we meet Butterflies in Spirit founder Lorelei Williams and Kathara founder Babette Santos and get to know why their work is so important to them.

It is a very busy time of year and the longest day of the year is less than a week away. Battered Women's Support Services has a strong alliance with Walk4Justice. Members of Walk4Justice will walk from Kamloops to Winnipeg in honour the lost but not forgotten women who have died through violence or who ...

TORONTO - When they walked out of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside on June 21, Gladys Radek and Bernie Williams prepared themselves for raw memories and painful moments on their fourth Walk4Justice across Canada. Survivors themselves, Radek and Williams share the grief experienced by too many First Nations families who continue to search for answers and seek justice for their lost women and children.

When Marge Humchitt takes part in the Walk4Justice to Ottawa this summer, she'll be thinking of her sister, Cheryl, who was killed 18 years ago in the Downtown Eastside. "Definitely I'll be having thoughts of my sister, and my other sisters on the street," Humchitt told the Georgia Straight in an interview at the Sacred Circle on West Cordova Street.

In British Columbia, they call it the Highway of Tears. A 450-mile stretch of road along the Trans-Canada Highway has claimed the lives of dozens of young women, many of them indigenous, who have disappeared on this road or were murdered nearby.

A Manitoba teen plans to run more than 100 kilometres over the next four days in hopes of raising awareness for missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. Tracie Leost, 16, gets her "Journey of Hope" run underway in the Lake Manitoba community of Oak Point Wednesday morning.

In 2012, Williams founded Butterflies in Spirit, a dance troupe and non-profit organization consisting of family members of missing and murdered indigenous women. With a mission to raise awareness of violence against aboriginal women and girls, Butterflies in Spirit has performed at numerous gatherings and events throughout the province. On stage, members of the group wear shirts depicting images of some of their relatives, including Williams's aunt and cousin.

The Highway of Tears and the disappearances of the indigenous women have become a political scandal in British Columbia. But those cases are just a small fraction of the number who have been murdered or disappeared nationwide.