Inquiry Into Murdered Aboriginal Women

[frizzlefry]

Normally I would not pay too much attention to a Sun opinion piece but this guy has nailed it.

Link

WINNIPEG -- Before we rush out and spend tens of millions of dollars on a national inquiry to figure out why so many aboriginal women have been murdered over the past few decades, maybe we should start looking at who's doing the killing.

According to an RCMP report released in May, the vast majority of murdered aboriginal women were not killed by strangers, they were killed by spouses, boyfriends, family members or acquaintances of the victims.

"Female homicide victims generally know the person who kills them -- more than 90% had a previous relationship with them," said the report. "This is true for aboriginal and non-aboriginal female victims."

We know who's killing aboriginal women. Most of them are men -- 89%. Close to 40% of the killers were either the spouses or boyfriends of the victims, 23% of them were family members, and 30% were acquaintances. Only a small minority of the killers were strangers -- 8%.

So the picture that the aboriginal lobby is trying to paint, that aboriginal women and girls are being plucked off the street randomly by strangers and are being killed, is false, according to the facts.

In the vast majority of the killings, aboriginal women were murdered over arguments, frustration and despair or jealousy with their spouses, boyfriends, family members or acquaintances, according to the report. And in most cases, they were murdered in someone's residence.

Instead of targeting the people who are actually doing the killing, though, the aboriginal lobby wants to blame it on society as a whole, including government and police. They want to blame the Harper government for not calling a national inquiry. And they want to blame police, even though the clearance rate for all murdered women -- including aboriginal women -- is close to 90%.

They don't want to talk about the people doing the killing because the killers, for the most part, are also aboriginal.

Aboriginal men are killing aboriginal women.

It's so politically incorrect to talk about that, not even the RCMP were willing to put it in their report.

They broke down the perpetrators by age, their relationship to the victim, their employment status, whether they collected welfare and if they had previous criminal involvement. So they obviously knowwho the killers are.

Yet they don't identify them by race. So it's OK to identify the victims by race -- more than 1,000 murdered aboriginal women between 1980 and 2012 -- but it's somehow not relevant to identify the race of the offender.
Right.

The reality is, the profiles of those who murder aboriginal women and the circumstances surrounding those killings are almost identical to those of all murdered women, regardless of race, according to the RCMP report.

In the vast majority of murders against women, the perpetrator knew the victim, the killings were over issues like arguments, jealousy, despair, and most of the homicides occurred in residences.

This is a problem of violence against women generally, not just against aboriginal women or any other race of women.

So why are the aboriginal lobby and many in the media calling for a national inquiry into the murders of aboriginal women?

Because it's politically fashionable. It sounds compassionate. Some people want to feel like they're part of Canada's intelligentsia so they jump on the bandwagon and call for a national inquiry into murdered and missing aboriginal women.

Even if a national inquiry into violence against women generally -- regardless of race -- is a good idea, then proponents of one should give us concrete reasons why this type of probe would help. I mean specific reasons, not vague pronouncements about opening the door to new funding opportunities or better programming. That's gibberish. It has no meaning.

We know the people who are doing the killing. It's time to stop putting our heads in the sand and start being honest about who is killing all women, not just aboriginal women.

The race-card approach is getting really old.

The requests for an inquiry has been all over the news today. Aside from some moderates who wisely suggest poverty, as a root cause, should be a topic at these inquiries, the lobby pushing it is exploiting the deaths of native women to push a political agenda.

Mulcair should be ashamed of himself.

Maybe the message should be changed from "Why are so many aboriginal women being murdered?" to "Why are so many aboriginal men murdering and abusing women?"

But that's not politically correct I guess.

[FraserB]

Double post

[FraserB]

If this was SUCH a pressing issue, the First Nations would already be having an inquiry. Since these women's own communities are not doing anything about it, it is very clear it is not a huge priority for the FA (most likely because they would have to admit they have issues with Natives killing other Natives).

But if they do manage to force a government inquiry, that inquiry better find that it was the actions of non-Natives/the governments that led to Natives killing Natives. Otherwise it will be a "cover-up" and "evidence of the ongoing racist agenda of non-Natives". Either way, there had better be some more money for the FA coming out of this.

[kertejud2]

Originally posted by frizzlefry

Maybe the message should be changed from "Why are so many aboriginal women being murdered?" to "Why are so many aboriginal men murdering and abusing women?"

But that's not politically correct I guess.

It isn't what the opinion piece was arguing for based on his last couple sentences:

"Why are men murdering and abusing women"

[frizzlefry]

Originally posted by kertejud2


It isn't what the opinion piece was arguing for based on his last couple sentences:

"Why are men murdering and abusing women"

The movement to have an inquiry are asking "Why are aboriginal women being murdered" I was simply proposing a more logical question for them to ask as aboriginal women are being murdered by aboriginal men. It would make more sense for the native mouth pieces to ask why their men kill their women at a high rate if they want to get closer to the issue. But the question they are asking is politically motivated anyways.

But if there is to be an inquiry about this the question in the opinion piece makes more sense. I'm all for anything to reduce domestic violence for all Canadians.

[suntan]

Here's a similar article from the hated right-wing rag The Globe and Mail.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe...ticle20211559/

[killramos]

Good article and largely mirrors my opinions on the topic.

I think people watch to much criminal minds, the way the media has been portraying this you would swear there was one or a group of serial killers on the loose responsible for the deaths of thousands.

So far from reality it's sad.

[Robin Goodfellow]

Someone has missed the point.

This isn't about investigating solved murders, this is about investigating the unsolved murders of missing native women.

Native women get murdered outside of their communities under different circumstances than they do inside of their communities.

This isn't about women who got "Mysteriously" killed on reserve, this is about women who went missing on the highway of tears... Where the culprits could be virtually anyone.

[frizzlefry]

Originally posted by Robin Goodfellow
Someone has missed the point.

This isn't about investigating solved murders, this is about investigating the unsolved murders of missing native women.

Native women get murdered outside of their communities under different circumstances than they do inside of their communities.

This isn't about women who got "Mysteriously" killed on reserve, this is about women who went missing on the highway of tears... Where the culprits could be virtually anyone.

Link

The majority of all female homicides are solved (close to 90%) and there is little difference in solve rates between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal victims.

Police-reported data indicates that solve rates are comparable between incidents involving Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal female victims of homicide. Overall, 5,770 of 6,551 incidents from 1980 to 2012 were solved.

In the data collected solve rates varied across the country, from as low as 80% (Nova Scotia) to as high as 100% (New Brunswick) for Aboriginal females, and as low as 84% (British Columbia) to as high as 100% (PEI, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories) for non-Aboriginal females. Solve rates for the provinces and territories are illustrated in Figure 10. These fluctuate significantly when the numbers involved are small, for example, in Atlantic Canada.

While solve rates remain similar between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal female homicides, certain homicides appear to be solved less frequently than homicides overall. For example, homicides involving women who were reported to be employed as prostitutes were solved at a significantly lower rate than homicides overall; for Aboriginal victims in the sex trade, the solve rate was 60%, whereas for non-Aboriginals it was 65%. Similarly, homicides involving female victims employed in other illegal activities 30 were cleared at a lower rate than the overall; Aboriginal victims had their cases solved 65% of the time and non-Aboriginal victims 60%.

Highway of tears is a specific case. White women and Native women went missing. There has already been an inquiry into that case. The white women cases were solved more often but I recall the reason was difficulty in investigating the cases involving aboriginal women as more of them were transient.

The latest push is for an inquiry into ALL aboriginal female deaths, not one person pushing for it in the media scrum I saw mentioned the highway of tears.

[Inzane]

Originally posted by frizzlefry
Mulcair should be ashamed of himself.

Just like the "Redford is a cunt" line used in another thread, you could probably apply that to just about any political situation that he speaks out on.

[googe]

Originally posted by FraserB
If this was SUCH a pressing issue, the First Nations would already be having an inquiry. Since these women's own communities are not doing anything about it, it is very clear it is not a huge priority for the FA (most likely because they would have to admit they have issues with Natives killing other Natives).

But if they do manage to force a government inquiry, that inquiry better find that it was the actions of non-Natives/the governments that led to Natives killing Natives. Otherwise it will be a "cover-up" and "evidence of the ongoing racist agenda of non-Natives". Either way, there had better be some more money for the FA coming out of this.

Nope, our action has nothing to do with what the natives are or aren't doing. We investigate it because humans are dying, and our duty to help them applies equally. Ignoring them because they're native is far more racist than whatever you're talking about.

[FraserB]

Originally posted by googe


Nope, our action has nothing to do with what the natives are or aren't doing. We investigate it because humans are dying, and our duty to help them applies equally. Ignoring them because they're native is far more racist than whatever you're talking about.

The overwhelming majority of the cases have been cleared. Now they want the government to spend more money figuring out why the murders took place when it's already well known.

[frizzlefry]

If the aboriginal leaders are so concerned a first step they could take is to implement prohibition. Saw a study of communities that went dry and violence decreased. Alcohol is also cited as a major factor in the number of deaths of aboriginal women. Its not perfect by any stretch but seems to work well in alaska. Bootlegging becomes a problem but even with that, violence tends to decrease. Plus, if a drunk native guy beats the crap out of his wife its another charge they can hit them with.