The Dominion - Gender

For Their Own Good

taramichelle — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 10:29:26 +0000

Ontario’s legal legacy of the "moral" woman

MONTREAL—In 2004, Velma Demerson’s autobiography, Incorrigible was published as a testament to the degradation, abuse and torture of women incarcerated between the ages of 16 to 35 under Ontario’s Female Refuges Act, or FRA (1919-1958). She writes: "The seizure, stigma and family turmoil that ensued from confining a woman in prison passes down through the generations."

In the 1930s, female adolescents like Demerson were liberating themselves and growing up at a time when customs were coming apart. “Imagine what it was like at the turn of the century, where for the first time, women are starting to flock to cities like Toronto and are experiencing autonomy, they are mobile, earning their own wages and are able to purchase some degree of autonomy...” states Dr Amanda Glasbeek, professor at York University and expert on feminist criminology and Canadian women's legal history.

In 1991, Demerson was invited to speak at an annual general meeting hosted by the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies (CAEFS)—a federation of member societies who work with and on behalf of marginalized, victimized, criminalized, and imprisoned women and girls.

Demerson spoke of her incarceration at age 18, in 1939, at the infamous Andrew Mercer Reformatory for Females in Toronto. At the time, Demerson was a white, working-class teenager, living in a common-law relationship with Harry Yip, a Chinese national. Demerson was pregnant with his child when she was brought to court by her father, who opposed the union on racist grounds. Demerson was charged with being “incorrigible”—an offence not found in the Criminal Code. The judge denied her plea to marry Harry and remanded her to be sentenced under section 15 of the Female Refuges Act.

Dr Glasbeek, the author of Moral Regulation and Governance in Canada: History, Context and Critical Issues, explains, “‘Incorrigible’ meant that if a woman was considered defiant of authority she could be brought to court with no evidence required.”

The intrusion of the law in the form of the FRA was symptomatic of a broader movement in the 1930s to try to contain and detain women from themselves—political and legal reformers saw women as “trading in their virtues for what they called a good time,” explains Dr Glasbeek. As a result, this kind of so-called protective justice was deployed to discipline women from stepping out of their role and was deemed for their own good. “The concern was very specific, increasingly the blame for sexual liberties got transferred to women—and women were not deemed the best judges of their own sexuality,” states Dr Glasbeek.

After uncovering legal and medical archives and old newspapers that prompted her own investigation, Demerson stated, “I found that [under FRA] a neglected girl could enter an industrial or training school without appearing before a magistrate. She could be transferred to an industrial refuge and again to the Mercer Reformatory. A girl could wind up in a barred cell without having been in court.”

It just so happened that, at the time, the Canadian Social Hygiene Council was involved in promoting Eugenics as a mechanism for social reform and racial improvement. According to CAEFS, this resulted in the casual round up of thousands of women for incarceration after legislation passed in 1918 under the Prevention of Venereal Diseases Act (VD Act)—a campaign brought on by the Council, later known as the Health League of Canada.

The VD Act granted government-appointed doctors the authority to incarcerate women depicted as promiscuous and assumed to have contracted a venereal disease, women raped by a family member (or accused of incest), women feared to be queer or those suspected of eloping by her parents.

Government-funded agencies such as the Associated Children’s Aid Society of Ontario (OACAS), a program that began operating in 1920, targeted women living out of wedlock, confiscating their children as wards of the state.

Doctors used these women in custody to assess new drugs being developed. Velma’s pregnancy was threatened when she was given pills now identified as Pheniramine, Sulphanilamide and Dagenan—all forms of antibiotic and antibacterial drugs that have heavy sedative effects. Dagenan is no longer used to treat humans.

Women who displayed no symptoms of VD were sent to the Queen Street Asylum (also referred to as “999 Queen Street” and now the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health) for fever treatment; some were placed inside a cabinet or “fever machine” where the temperature was raised to over 105 degrees for long lengths of time.

Demerson’s newborn son suffered from severe skin disease as a result of the experiments. He was removed from the Mercer without consent from Demerson, who writes in her book: “What can one say in the brutal atmosphere of the Mercer where each person is obsessed with her own personal trauma?”

Dr Edna Guest, a physician at the Mercer Reformatory from 1921 to 1939, was a distinguished member of the Canadian Social Hygiene Council and contributed to the Social Health Journal, where she strongly, publicly supported the “sterilization of the unfit.”

Dr Glasbeek confirms that the medical experiments conducted on "incorrigible" women and Mercer inmates by Dr Guest and others were “not far in theory and technology from the Eugenics movement” of the 1930s in Nazi Germany.

Demerson recounts one such experiment: “I watch as she [Dr Guest] opens and closes a metal box...Suddenly I feel a pain so encompassing that I lose all control. My hands tear loose and I flail about...then with one swift motion, the doctor applies a burning liquid.”

Dr Guest was removed from her position with the Prisons and Reformatories Department on December 15, 1939—after carrying out a procedure that resulted in the death of an unidentified young female patient. CAEFS has found increasing evidence that many girls died from drug and fever treatments, but their deaths have not been recorded, partially due to the cover-up of medical records.

Ashley Smith's suicide on October 19, 2007, at the Grand Valley Institution for Women signals a nostalgic flashback to the abusive history of morality sentencing against Canadian women. Nineteen-year-old Smith strangled herself after a one-month sentence for "disruptive behaviour" that stretched into four years of incarceration, spent entirely in solitary confinement.

Although CAEFS was primarily responsible for the repeal of the offensive provisions of the FRA in 1958, women and girls continue to suffer abuse in Canadian federal penitentiaries. Ashley Smith died within the law and we learn from Velma’s memoirs that during her confinement at the Mercer, she too often resolved to die: “My deviation from normal behavior has undoubtedly been reported. I am being watched, more so since my escape, apparent attempted suicide, and hysterical screaming. I am only a step away from madness.”

On Novemeber, 23, 2011, Howard Sapers, Correctional Investigator of Canada, spoke at an open seminar at the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Law. He concluded by stating,“Ashley Smith’s experience in federal custody was one marked by missed opportunities. Her behaviour was primarily viewed as requiring security, as opposed to therapeutic interventions. Responses to incidents of self-harm were inconsistent and often contrary to her needs...while some improvements have been made, the accountability and governance structures that contributed to Ashley’s untimely death are still largely in place today.”

Sapers's report was a lengthy response to heavy criticism from human rights groups, including CAEFS, and after the public release of a ghastly video recording of Ashley’s suicide while in federal custody at the Grand Valley Institution for Women on October 19, 2007.

This year marks 10 years since Demerson finally cleared her name at age 81. At a national press conference on October 7, 2002, after 60 years of virtually no response or official apology, a negotiated settlement with the Ontario Government was reached and the Female Refuges Act was declared unconstitutional.

Demerson has been a tireless advocate for women illegally confined across Canada and now, in her 90s, she resides in Toronto. She received the JS Woodsworth Award for anti-racism from the Ontario NDP Caucus in 2002, on the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

While Smith’s case renewed public interest in community-based alternatives for addressing women’s needs, Demerson and countless other women continue to live with the legacy of the FRA—a law that engendered contradictions, double standards and gender oppressions within a patriarchal culture that saw itself as a force for social change.

Dalia Merhi is a Montreal-based Arab artist, writer and citizen journalist involved in grassroots struggles for social justice. She is an editor with the Media Co-op.

Velma and Family

Scoring for Information

stephlaw — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 09:32:45 +0000

Police infiltration tactics viewed as a violation of women's bodies and rights

TORONTO—With the rise of modern technologies, most of us are at least peripherally aware that our lives are becoming increasingly monitored. We casually brush away the uncanny feelings conjured by Google ads culling search terms from our emails, and gently ignore the bubble cameras that watch the perimeters of offices, schools and public spaces in metropolitan areas. But state surveillance penetrates even more intimate aspects of life than your email inbox and your child’s schoolyard.

The use of sexual deception in intelligence gathering is neither new nor uncommon, said Gary T. Marx, professor emeritus from MIT, Harvard University and University of Colorado, and author of Protest and Prejudice and Undercover: Police Surveillance in America.

While agencies generally have rules against sexual deception in intelligence gathering, and will be careful not to document instances of it, supervisors will imply that agents should use sex in order to gain intelligence. The secretive nature of undercover operations presents a roadblock to any kind of future accountability, he said.

“What's the difference between having sex through threat or coercion and having sex through lies?”

Recent stories of police infiltration appearing in the news have drawn this scenario out of the realm of James Bond fantasies and into public discourse.

Eight women in the United Kingdom are currently pursuing a human rights lawsuit against the Metropolitan Police, after they discovered that five of their former romantic partners were undercover agents. These cops were assigned to spy on environmental activists starting in the mid-1980's. At least two of these police spies have fathered children with an activist while undercover, and one of them, Jim Boyling, even married the mother, according to Britain’s Guardian newspaper.

In Canada, allegations have arisen against a police officer who had sexual relations with women in the community he infiltrated during the lead-up to the 2010 G20 Summit in Toronto, activists in southern Ontario told The Dominion.

Shailagh Keaney, an activist and independent journalist in Ontario who knew the G20 infiltrators, said that gendered biases were at play in the tactics used by infiltrators, as well as in the actions of uniformed police during the protests.

“Women's bodies are perceived as less violent but more violate-able," she said. "Men were generally beaten more brutally [during the G20] but women were routinely strip searched without even having their pockets checked.”

For marginalized women whose communities have historically been harmed by governmental powers, the thought of having been intimate with someone who represents state authority is profoundly violating, said Jen Meunier, who identifies as Algonquin and a womyn of mixed descents. “Sexual consent means being fully aware of the circumstances, being aware of everything that is necessary for your safety.”

Indigenous communities in Canada have understood surveillance and infiltration to be a concrete reality for many decades now, Meunier said.

Rachelle Sauve, a cook and community organizer in Peterborough, Ontario, who knew people who were affected by direct interactions with infiltrators, believes undercover agents strategically take advantage of characteristics that are traditionally stereotyped as being feminine, such as compassion, nurturing and emotional receptivity.

“That, in itself, is gendered violence,” she said. “This is coercion, this is manipulation, and this is rape—the criminalization of dissent is the only reason it is seen as acceptable.”

Like in any war, the women of subordinate groups—such as Muslims, Arabs, activists and Indigenous peoples—find the oppression they already face on the basis of gender exacerbated by their status as targets of state repression.

Sauve views the use of sex in intelligence gathering as part of the broader historical picture of gender violence, often used as a tool of control and domination.

“This contains a certain depth of psychological warfare that is particularly pernicious,” she said. “You can destroy an entire culture by raping its women.”

According to Professor Marx, the role of secrecy is the key structural enabler of sexual misconduct in undercover operations. In addition, cases of infiltration are rarely made public if they do not succeed in gaining grounds for arrests. Most of the people who have had interactions with infiltrators may never find out the individual's true identity.

The best devices for preventing sexual misconduct by police are transparency, pluralism of powers in the state and continual institutional review, Professor Marx said.

Human rights law may be an excellent emerging tool for seeking redress in cases like these, which have no clear precedent. Judiciary law also contains tools for pursuing accountability, such as suing perpetrators for mental harm.

For Meunier and Sauve, the solution for activist communities involves a stronger acknowledgement of the gendered aspects of state repression.

“We need to collectively address gender issues and heal our vulnerabilities all the time—not just when something bad happens."

Kelly Pflug-Back is a poet, writer, student and activist. You can find her newest stuff in upcoming issues of Goblin Fruit, Ideomancer Speculative Fiction and Iconoclast.

Questions? Comments? Drop us a line: info@mediacoop.ca.

Spooks using sex

The Spirit Lives On

Tim McSorley — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 15:39:48 +0000

Women’s Memorial March bolstered by thousands; Sisters in Spirit finds new home

DOWNTOWN EASTSIDE—Kept out of the missing women’s inquiry, women’s and Aboriginal groups took to the streets for the 21st annual Women’s Memorial March in Vancouver on Feb. 14. Thousands joined the march to honour women who have gone missing or been murdered in the Downtown Eastside and across Canada.

Aboriginal women are hit especially hard by violence. Sisters in Spirit, a project of the Native Women’s Association of Canada to compile cases of missing or murdered Aboriginal women, had documented 582 cases before its funding was cut off by the federal Conservative government in 2010.

Led by drumming and singing, the march proceeded solemnly from Main and Hastings streets through the Downtown Eastside, an area where the issue of missing and murdered women has been particularly acute. Some participants held panels with the names of women who have gone missing or been murdered.

Participants fell silent as the procession stopped at different points along the route where women had been killed or last seen. Aboriginal elders burned sage and prayed.

“Sham” Inquiry Slammed

For years, residents and workers in the Downtown Eastside had noted that women were disappearing and had tipped police off to a man in Port Coquitlam, but little was done.

The Missing Women Commission of Inquiry is investigating why police took so many years to put a stop to the serial killer. Uncovering a disturbing pattern of misogyny and racism, the inquiry is shedding some light on how the police have failed Aboriginal women and sex workers.

A number of community organizations representing women in the Downtown Eastside and Aboriginal women have refused to participate in what they call a “sham” inquiry, after the provincial government declared it would provide them no funding for the hiring of lawyers. Human rights and legal experts say that to deny these women legal counsel is essentially to render them voiceless.

Sisters in Spirit Rises Again

The defunding of the Sisters in Spirit initiative has been seen by critics as another betrayal of marginalized women. Established by the Native Women’s Association of Canada in 2005, Sisters in Spirit had developed a complex database of information on missing and murdered Aboriginal women, providing invaluable statistics and illuminating a national crisis that has prompted shockingly little response. The project’s supporters have argued that it was defunded because it often focused on the complicity of the justice system, all levels of law enforcement, and news makers in ensuring that cases of violence against Aboriginal women across the country were systematically deprioritized.

Recently, the project has found a new home in the office of Ottawa’s Coalition to End Violence Against Women. Renewed at a grassroots level, Families of Sisters in Spirit picks up where the original project left off. Project volunteers say it fills an information void, as police do not track numbers of missing and murdered Aboriginal women.

“It’s so sad because I post these pictures of missing girls almost every day,” Bridget Tolley of Families of Sisters in Spirit told the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network. “But very rarely I post anything about [cases] being solved.”

It’s no easy task to fight for justice in a society where violence against women, and especially the most marginalized, is allowed to continue, and where resources to bolster this fight are limited. But having no funding, according to Families of Sisters in Spirit’s Kristen Gilchrist, is an advantage.

“We don’t fear the punitive nature of the government,” she said.

This article was originally published by the Vancouver Media Co-op.

The Spirit Lives On 1

The Spirit Lives On 2

Occupy Rape Culture

hillarybain — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 08:57:23 +0000

Confronting sexual assault and gender-based violence in the Occupy movement

MONTREAL—On the night of October 19, something happened at Occupy Montreal that would substantially change the mood of the camp.

Exactly what occurred is unclear. Some claim there was an attempted rape. Others shrug off the incident as nothing more than an invasion of a young woman’s personal space by an intoxicated man.

Incidents of sexual assault and rape have been reported in New York, Cleveland, Dallas, Baltimore, Glasgow...sadly, the list goes on. It is an unfortunate reminder that even movements seeking a more just world, free from oppressive systems such as capitalism, are not inherently free from a culture of rape and violence against women and other marginalized populations, such as trans- people and those with disabilities.

“It has nothing to do with Occupy. It has everything to do with the problems in the world that Occupy is trying to eradicate,” says Laura Boyd-Clowes, a philosophy student at Concordia University. Boyd-Clowes has been actively organizing with the Occupy Montreal movement since it began.

“Let's be clear. This is something that happens in society regularly and the Occupy movement is like a little microcosm for society,” she says.

According to the Violence Against Women Survey, published in 1993, 39 per cent of Canadian adult women reported having experienced at least one incident of sexual assault since the age of 16. This comprehensive study on gender-based violence also found that only six per cent of sexual assaults were reported to police.

It should not be seen as exceptional that sexual assault is being reported at Occupy sites. Rather, it seems to reflect a society rife with problems, one that so often silences, excuses or condones sexual assault.

Lucinda Marshall is the President of the Feminist Peace Network. Noticing the prevalence of gender-based oppressions in the Occupy movement, she created a group called Occupy Patriarchy. Based in Washington, DC, Marshall is hopeful that Occupy Patriarchy will spread to other sites and help to create spaces that explicitly address gender-based violence and oppression.

“The bottom line is that you cannot talk about economic justice unless you are going to talk about things like the wage gap, about childcare policies, maternity leave, all of those things that have a huge economic impact on women,” she says. “Those things need to be a part of the conversation if we're going to have real change that [would] impact 99 per cent of us, not just the male percentage of us.”

At Occupy Montreal, movement to address gender-based inequalities has been slow. Discussion of creating safer spaces and an anti-patriarchy committee has circulated in camp. However, after the disputed incident of October 19, no explicit gender-based policies were discussed at the General Assembly, and no statements have been released against sexual assault.

While there has been little concrete action to challenge issues of gender-based violence at Occupy Montreal as of yet, anti-oppression workshops addressing gender inequity have been scheduled and a call-out to organize around issues of consent and safer spaces has been circulated among many local gender advocacy organizations.

When asked if there was a need for a motion explicitly addressing gender-based violence, Occupy Montreal participant Vivian Kaloxilos stated that gender inequality was not an issue. “We try to look at each other not as men and women but as people just doing things,” she said.

Not all agree that a space that operates without acknowledging the existence of gender differences will be able to overcome gender inequality.

“Clearly, gender-based oppression is happening in our world and may be perpetuated even in these well intentioned spaces,” says Vanessa Fernando, External Coordinator of the Sexual Assault Centre of McGill’s Student Society. “I think explicitly acknowledging its occurrence is the first step towards making it better.”

Fernando says that the rhetoric of supposed equality might erase or delegitimize the experiences of those who experience gender-based violence.

For Fernando, identifying the existence of gender inequality and its intersection with issues of privilege, race, and ability is a key move in the creation of a strong movement for social justice. “We can't just be talking about the state and capitalism. We need to be talking about all of these other things together. Historically in these movements it's been like, 'Oh, we'll talk about this later, once we get these baseline things achieved,’ and then it gets further and further marginalized.”

In an effort to combat sexual assault, a handful of occupations have established gender-oriented committees and released statements explicitly condemning gender-based violence. Occupy Wall Street has created a safer-spaces committee that strives to create an anti-oppressive environment. The committee has established itself “in order to respond to threatening actions that continue systematic forms of oppression.”

Safer spaces frameworks have been employed to provide for a greater sense of safety within a community, while recognizing that notions of safety can vary from individual to individual. These spaces frequently challenge the way that dynamics of power, domination, violence, oppression, marginalization and inequality are replicated, and place a greater emphasis on processes of consent.

Fernando sees the creation of safer spaces as part of a process of recognizing differing access to power and privilege. She sees these anti-oppressive frameworks as powerful tools for change and self-reflection. “There needs to be that wholesale recognition that [social change] needs to be created in a way that people will be respected and supported if they critique something," she says. "Otherwise the movement is going to keep perpetuating [the oppressive system] we have.”

Despite the creation of safer spaces committees, controversy continues to surround protocol for dealing with instances of sexual assault. Whether or not to engage with police has caused much argument within occupation sites.

At Occupy Baltimore, a security statement released to the media without the consent of a General Assembly, caused an uproar in the press. The statement suggested that assaults be dealt with internally rather than through police involvement.

Police involvement has been criticized by some for its potential to cause greater harm or trauma to a survivor, particularly those with precarious legal status. The statement was later revised to express that while recognizing the flawed US Justice system, the movement will respect the desires and decisions of survivors when dealing with assault, and will provide alternative resources for those who don’t wish to engage with police.

Instances of assault at Occupy Montreal are dealt with on a case-by-case basis, says Eric Laramee, who acts as Occupy Montreal's negotiator with police. There is a mediation committee set up to deal with the accused, but ultimately the decision on whether or not to call police is up to the survivor.

“I think the key thing is that the ultimate decision is up to the person who was victimized,” feminist advocate Marshall says. “I think that [dealing with assault internally] should be seen as an option. If it's an option that might empower somebody, then, that's terrific. If it's intimidating them from reporting a crime to the police that they feel can better handle it, then that's not okay.”

In the case of the October 19 incident, the police were called and the accused individual was removed from the site. It is unclear whether or not charges were laid.

While the occupations outwardly focus their battle on economic injustice, an important struggle towards gender equity and against a culture of rape continue to be fought within the Occupy camps.

"The problem is still there,” says Marshall. “We have a lot of work to do, specifically to make male people aware of the damage that misogyny and patriarchy cause."

Dana Holtby is a feminist, environmental activist and indy media lover.

Get Consent

Fight the Fires that Be

Martin Lukacs — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 12:42:29 +0000

Women struggle to make fire-fighting profession more inclusive

LONDON, ON—Chelsea Merkt-Kit leans back casually in her chair. Her surroundings are calm. For the moment, she’s without her team, a group of men she calls her “brothers.” Her long blonde hair is pulled back into a neat and tidy ponytail. Her navy blue uniform is oversized and engulfs her petite frame.

The crest on her uniform reads the same as every man’s in the building: “Be caring, be safe, and prevent harm.” At 400 Horton Street, London, Ontario’s central fire house, these are words by which men and women alike live and die.

But Merkt-Kit isn’t who you would usually picture climbing a ladder into a burning building. The 27-year-old Waterloo native is 5’7 and 125 pounds.

“People are always surprised when they hear what I do,” she says. “Especially when I’m in a dress and heels.”

She’s one of only eight women currently working as a professional firefighter in London, a city that boasts a force of almost 400.

“Of course, it’s a male dominated profession,” Merkt-Kit admits. She cautiously explains that you need to be a certain type of woman to survive as a firefighter.

“You have to get along well with men, and allow them to be themselves,” she says.

Yet the small number of female firefighters in Canada paints a picture of a service still dictated not simply by personality, but by the sturdy persistence of gendered labour roles.

Women account for only three per cent of professional firefighters in Canada, says Paul Laffin, a data dissemination officer at Statistics Canada. In Ontario, women in firefighting are paid on average $13,500 less than their male counterparts.

Nevertheless, Merkt-Kit is among the first generation of female firefighters to benefit from earlier steps toward equality in the workplace, says Karen Simpson, an International Trustee with the International Association of Women in Fire and Emergency Services (also known as I-Women), in a phone interview from Chatham-Kent. She’s been a professional firefighter in Ontario for seven years.

She hopes that women like herself, and Merkt-Kit, can create another wave of change in the service, one which will make firefighting increasingly open and safe for women.

Over the last decade, Simpson says, training to become a firefighter in Canada has become more accessible and standardized. Women are entering the workforce with more confidence, having proved themselves physically and mentally against the men in school.

And while these systemic changes speak volumes, it’s the women who blazed the trail for the “new generation” who know best how far firefighting has come.

Women such as Kim Harrison. The team captain of the Medical Response Unit at the Kearney Volunteer Fire Department in Kearney, Ontario, Harrison has been fighting fires for 26 years.

Forty per cent of Harrison’s team are women.

“A lot of women assume they can’t join, that they don’t have enough strength,” Harrison said over the phone from Kearney. “We are trying to open doors for them.”

She does so by serving as a role model herself. Harrison gives tours of the fire station to women interested in the service, and often speaks at local schools. She urges children to use the word “firefighter” rather than “fireman.” For almost three decades, she’s been slowly working to change people’s attitudes.

“This is not a male place anymore,” Harrison says proudly.

Fire Chief Rick Phillip is thankful for her presence. For Phillip, whose wife and grand-daughter are also firefighters, women in firefighting is only natural. “They are far more compassionate,” he adds.

Overcoming the systemic difficulties that prevent women from joining the service is also necessary if Ontario hopes to keep both professional and volunteer fire squads full, says Carl G. Pearson, president of the Fire Fighters Association of Ontario.

“Half the population is female,” he said in a phone interview, adding that the assumption that female firefighters are less capable than their male counterparts is simply incorrect.

A department such as Chief Phillip’s in Kearney is a glimpse into a promising future, says I-Women’s Simpson. Yet, she says, there is much more work to be done.

“It doesn’t matter if women are as fit or better trained. If the administration is not prepared to accept women, there is going to be a struggle,” says Simpson.

Only a few weeks ago, Simpson and the I-Women organization demanded that the concerns of women in firefighting be heard at the US National Fallen Firefighters Foundation’s 2nd Annual Research Symposium.

Right now, Simpson explained, there is no data exploring the relationship between fighting fire and reproductive health, and specifically how chemicals produced in a fire can affect a woman’s ability to have healthy babies.

I-Women managed, for the first time, to get the questions of reproductive health discussed as stand-alone issues at the conference.

Simpson hopes that within the next three to five years, with adequate funding and research, the fire service will start to properly address these concerns. While the spark of change has been ignited, it’s going to be up to the “next generation” to keep “pounding their fists and stomping their feet.”

It’s probably going to depend on women like Merkt-Kit, who was married last year. Her husband is a professional firefighter in Waterloo. And while she is a face for how far the service has come, she may soon be affected by where firefighting, for women, has not yet gone.

When asked if the two had yet started a family, she smiled.

“No, not yet, but soon.”

Lisa Laventure is a graduate student in journalism at the University of Western Ontario.

Firefighter illustration

Justice Embodied

Tim McSorley — Mon, 23 May 2011 05:59:28 +0000

Bearing the future to protect the Earth

VANCOUVER—A boy found his younger brother’s body hanging in the basement. Another mine passed the environmental review process. More women are going missing and are murdered. The search for a nuclear waste site continues.

Stories told by the media are presented as a series of disconnected incidents and issues. Most governments, federal or otherwise, work in a similar framework of disconnection, whether to determine jurisdiction or to deflect accountability. Public discussion often separates reality into compartments.

The discourse of many groups and campaigns working on environmental and climate issues explicitly rejects this disconnected perspective. However, that same discourse has been questioned for its failure to make many other connections that Indigenous peoples, women and others have been pointing out for decades.

“Once you go to a birth, you know how connected you are to the earth, and to all creation around us,” says Neddie Thompson, a traditional midwife from Akwesasne, in Kanienkehaka (Mohawk) territory. “It’s the women who give birth to all of our children...to take care of this land.”

“As an Indigenous feminist, one of the links I, as well as many Indigenous women across the world, see is between reproductive health and environmental justice. Simultaneously I am angry about the lack of recognition of this link within most environmental discourse,” wrote Cree/Norwegian Indigenous feminist Erin Konsmo. Also a student, she added that “[it’s] insulting to hear in environmental classes that the idea of any form of sustainability is a new concept.”

The declaration from the International Indigenous Women’s Environmental and Reproductive Health Symposium held last year in California states that “[sovereignty] and autonomy in relation to our lands, territories and resources are intricately connected to sovereignty and autonomy in relation to our bodies, minds and spirits.”

In occupied Canada, and throughout Turtle Island (North America) and Abya Yala (the Americas), the language used to describe resource extraction and environmental destruction is often framed in terms of the war on the land. The phrase is often used as though this were somehow separate from the wars on Indigenous peoples, on women, and on all beings inhabiting the planet.

The identification of the planet as living, life-bearing, and feminine—Mother Earth, among many other names—has been adopted by many environmental and climate activists. Resource extraction and environmental destruction are often also framed in gendered language, particularly using analogies of rape. The use of these words, however, often does not include any kind of analysis of the connections between violence against the earth and violence against women.

An entirely different worldview is illustrated through the spoken and written words of Indigenous peoples throughout this hemisphere, the original keepers and defenders of the lands on which environmental and climate campaigns are now carried out.

“Grassroots and land-based struggles characterize most of Native environmentalism,” wrote Anishnaabeg author and activist Winona Laduke in All Our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life. “We are nations of people with distinct land areas, and our leadership and direction emerge from the land up.”

“Western European peoples have never learned to consider the nature of the world discerned from a spatial point of view. And a singular difficulty faces peoples of Western European heritage in making a transition from thinking in terms of time to thinking in terms of space,” wrote Sioux author, teacher and activist Vine Deloria Jr. in his now-famous 1972 book God is Red: A Native View of Religion.

“The very essence of Western European identity involves the assumption that time proceeds in a linear fashion; further it assumes that at a particular point in the unraveling of this sequence, the peoples of Western Europe became the guardians of the world,” continued Deloria.

Many environmental and climate organizations and activists now support the ongoing struggles for collective Indigenous rights to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) over any activity or policy that may impact their territories. Less well known is the story of how the struggle for the right to FPIC is rooted in the organized response of Indigenous women some 40 years ago to the involuntary sterilization of Indigenous women in different territories otherwise known as the United States.

“It’s a really interesting history how it became central to our work and recognition of our rights as Indigenous people—the right to FPIC now relating to development on our territories, laws, toxins being used on our lands related to cultural items, and it all started as medical [terminology]. It started with the right of women to say yes or no, to be fully awake and not under threat when they give their agreement or any kind of medication,” longtime International Indian Treaty Council organizer Andrea Carmen told multiracial Indigenous hip-hop feminist reproductive justice freedom fighter Jessica Yee. The transcript of the conversation is included in Yee’s introduction to Feminism FOR REAL.

In the words of the SisterSong Women of Colour Reproductive Justice Collective, a network of dozens of grassroots organizations, the reproductive justice framework “represents a shift for women advocating for control of their bodies, from a narrower focus on legal access and individual choice (the focus of mainstream organizations) to a broader analysis of racial, economic, cultural, and structural constraints on our power.”

“We believe reproductive justice exists when all people have the social, political and economic power and resources to make healthy decisions about our gender, bodies, sexuality and families for ourselves and our communities,” wrote Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice, one of the founding members of the SisterSong. “Reproductive Justice aims to transform power inequities and create long-term systemic change, and therefore relies on the leadership of communities most impacted by reproductive oppression.”

The terms “reproductive justice” and “environmental justice” have been used to emphasize this broader analysis and the need for long-term systemic change. The “justice” framework is not new; it has been used for decades by marginalized women and communities, and in particular, Indigenous women.

“Climate justice” is a term now used by many different people and organizations to make a similar distinction between their perspective and the narrow framework of much environmental discourse. However, if the centuries of experience and voices from the same people and communities the climate justice movement purports to support are ignored, dismissed, romanticized, or silenced, then perhaps the inclusion of “justice” is a cosmetic touch to the same environmental discourse.

Regardless of intentions, a mission statement or policy document is only words on a piece of paper. They can either become an ongoing reality, or they can join a long trail of broken treaties.

In 1992, longtime Sioux activist Floyd Red Crow Westerman recited some of the lyrics from his 1973 song “They Didn’t Listen” to conclude his testimony at the World Uranium Hearings in Austria: “And I told them not to dig for uranium, for if they did, the children would die. They didn’t listen, they didn’t listen to me. And I told them if the children die, there would be no keepers of the land. They didn’t listen.”

“If our midwives pass on Indigenous concepts of respecting our environment and keeping it healthy for the next seven generations, should they not be central to environmental discourse?” wrote Erin Konsmo in An Indigenous Feminist Reminder of Women and Environmental Justice. “They absolutely need to be. Otherwise, the ideas of risk will be greatly slanted away from our women and our future generations.”

Sandra Cuffe’s mom used to borrow her own mother’s old typewriter so her little daughter could type her stories. Thanks!

This article was published in A People's Forecast: The Climate Justice Issue, our 2011 special issue. To read more articles as they are published, click here.

Justice silenced

The Silence Was Deafening

Moira Peters — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 09:35:46 +0000

BC's Missing Women Commission of Inquiry hears from Downtown East Side

VANCOUVER—Passionate criticism and painful stories rang out at two Community Engagement Forums held at the end of January in Vancouver and Prince George, BC, leading up to this year's Missing Women Commission of Inquiry. Indigenous women spoke up to demand justice for their beloved family members and friends who have been disappeared or murdered.

More than 100 people gathered in a large hall at the Japanese Language School in Vancouver's Downtown East Side (DTES) on January 19, 2011. The Commission's process, content and the naming of Wally Oppal as Commissioner were subject to passionate criticism and scrutiny by those who have been demanding justice for their relatives, friends and colleagues for over 30 years.

"Mr. Oppal, this has been a long journey for a lot of us women," said Walk4Justice co-founder Bernie Williams.

The Commission was set in motion in September 2010 by an Order in Council by the BC Lieutenant Governor in Council. The terms of reference instruct the Commission to inquire into the investigations by police forces into the disappearances of women from the DTES between certain dates, inquire into the Criminal Justice Branch's 1998 stay of proceedings on charges against Robert Pickton, recommend changes concerning investigations into cases of missing women and suspected multiple homicides in BC and recommend changes concerning homicide investigations and inter-agency co-operation.

"Why did it take 69 women [in BC], and over 4,000 women nationally [for this to get started]?" asked Williams.

Sold into the sex trade in Prince Rupert as a child, Williams' mother was murdered in 1977. Two of her older sisters were murdered in the 1980s. Williams and other relatives of missing and murdered women out west and across the country have been organizing for decades, demanding justice and, among other things, a public inquiry concerning all missing and murdered women since the 1970s.

"I don't trust this whole Commission. I don't trust it," added Williams, to loud applause by those in attendance.

Many women regretted the choice of date and time for the community engagement forum. It was originally postponed, but then scheduled for one of the worst days possible: Wednesday, January 19, 2011 was a welfare payment day, complicating many local residents' and others' availability to participate.

The terms of reference of the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry were repeatedly called into question.

The inquiry into the way investigations of disappearances of women in the DTES were handled by police forces deals with investigations specifically between January 23, 1997 and February 5, 2002. This narrow window excludes dozens of women who have been murdered or gone missing both before and after the chosen dates. Furthermore, the infamous Highway of Tears—Highway 16 running east-west in northern BC—is not mentioned by name in the terms of reference, despite the fact that young women, almost all of them First Nations, have been going missing along that highway for decades.

"I started a movement in northern BC. My niece went missing on the Highway of Tears," began Walk4Justice co-founder Gladys Radek.

"Our people, our families, they need to know what happened," said Radek, echoing the voices of so many relatives of missing and murdered women. "The system is failing."

"I got home at 1:30 am last night and I checked my email, and there was a 'missing' poster. That missing poster was the mother of someone who went missing on the Highway of Tears five years ago," she continued, choking back tears.

Radek went to school with Maggie Layton, the woman whose photograph appeared on the missing poster in question. The two women walked alongside each other during a previous Walk4Justice—Layton, to demand justice for her missing daughter, and Radek, for her niece Tamara Chipman, and for all of the missing women and their families.

At the Community Engagement Forum in Prince George on January 21, 100 people gathered to speak out about their experiences, stories and their missing and murdered daughters, sisters, mothers, nieces and others. The Commission, and particularly Oppal, was urged to visit the communities along the Highway of Tears. A few speakers at the Vancouver forum echoed the request for the series of cases in northern BC to be dealt with thoroughly, and not simply as an aside to the inquiry into what occurred in the DTES.

"The women of the Highway of Tears need their own inquiry," asserted Alice Kendall of the DTES Women's Centre.

"There is poverty across Canada. There is racism across Canada," she said, but adding that "something happened in this specific neighbourhood [the DTES]."

In large part, the Commission of Inquiry arose out of the explosion of media attention concerning missing and murdered women during Robert Pickton's arrest, the high-profile forensic investigation of his pig farm in Port Coquitlam and his subsequent trial and conviction for the murders of six women. As does the Inquiry, media attention focused on a few sensational cases and issues, ignoring the vast majority of others.

The facts are undeniable. The overwhelming majority of missing and murdered women in BC are Indigenous women. As has often been the case with media coverage and investigations, the terms of reference offer no mention, analysis or instructions reflecting that reality.

With the exception of the sensationalist coverage of the Pickton case, the near complete failure of the police, media and government to take reports of missing and murdered women seriously, or to do anything about them, has continued for decades. Many women denounced the institutional racism of police forces and other institutions, which have resulted in the abuse and derision of families who report their daughters, mothers, sisters and others missing.

"The silence was definitely deafening. We could hear it," said Dianne George.

"How did the Commission of Inquiry come up with the dates of January 23, 1997 and February 5, 2002?" she asked.

The terms of reference arise from the principal goal of the Commission of Inquiry: to recommend changes to improve the investigations of police forces and the judicial system, as well as inter-institutional co-operation in the future. It reflects the Pickton case, but excludes many other women, families, perpetrators and systemic problems. The Missing Women Commission of Inquiry has in fact been dubbed the "Pickton Inquiry" by the media.

Several women came forward at the Community Engagement Forum to speak about their own experiences with Robert Pickton and other suspected perpetrators. They told harrowing stories of their interactions with Pickton and others, their sisters' and friends' visits to the infamous pig farm, and their treatment by the police when they came forward.

"I was treated as though I was making stuff up, as though I was delusional," recalled Terry Williams, adding that one police officer once told her that if she kept reporting information, she would be committed to a psychiatric institution.

The stories shared included experiences and incredibly detailed information, including the license plate of the van used by Pickton and others to abduct women, an Oregon license plate of another van seen abducting women and the location of Pickton's pig farm. Almost invariably, the response women and family members received echoed a comment made by Williams: when she had a license plate number of a van and a description of the man that she had seen abducting a woman from the DTES, "The cops would not take the information."

The history and experiences do not all relate to Robert Pickton. They do not all relate to the years between 1997 and 2002. Most of the women who spoke at the Community Engagement Forum expressed their frustration or anger at the exclusion of so many missing and murdered women, but also at their own exclusion from the process itself.

"What I think everyone here is saying is that those terms of reference are too narrow," reiterated Beverley Jacobs, emphasizing that she was not speaking as legal counsel for the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs (UBCIC), but as an Aboriginal woman.

"You have the authority, Commissioner Oppal, to change...those terms of reference," added Jacobs.

"We understand the dissatisfaction that has been shown here today," said Commissioner Wally Oppal, speaking on behalf of the Commission of Inquiry. "We want to see constructive changes made."

As the Community Engagement Forum came to a close, it was clear that relatives, friends, colleagues and neighbours of the missing and murdered women in Vancouver's Downtown East Side have been proposing constructive changes for years. Beyond their critiques and proposals for the official Commission of Inquiry, which is set to begin within a few months, they continue to organize and mobilize in the DTES, in northern BC and across the country.

The 20th annual Women's Memorial March for Missing and Murdered Women will be held again this year on February 14, 2011—Valentine's Day—in Vancouver's Downtown East Side. Everyone, of any gender, is invited to gather at the Carnegie Community Centre Theatre at Main and Hastings at 12:00pm, where relatives of missing and murdered will speak before the march begins at 1:00 pm. Two weeks of commemorative events began last week, on January 30, 2011.

Other Women's Memorial Marches, Sisters in Spirit vigils and rallies for justice will take place on February 14 in Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and dozens of other communities across the country.

Relatives and supporters will be joining the Walk4Justice once again this summer, walking across Canada to honour the missing and murdered Indigenous women from coast to coast, to raise awareness, and to demand justice. The Walk4Justice will reach Ottawa on September 19, 2011.

Sandra Cuffe is a contributing member of the Vancouver Media Co-op and based in Vancouver, in unceded Coast Salish territory. This article was originally published by the Vancouver Media Co-op.

Deafening Silence.Presentation

Deafening Silence: Crowd

The Self-Determination We Deserve

Maya Rolbin-Ghanie — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 05:15:03 +0000

Landmark charter challenge launched as Bill C-389 raises debate

MONTREAL—“Remember Stonewall?” read a banner dropped by two young people before they were arrested at this year's Trans-* Day of Remembrance in Ottawa. They were asking the community to remember a landmark riot against state repression and police brutality, led by Sylvia Rivera, a trans- woman of colour. The event is commonly known as “the hairpin drop heard around the world,” and remembered as having catalyzed North American trans- organizing.

In 1969, the year of the Stonewall Uprising in New York, it was hard to believe that a politician would ever seek to better the lives of trans- people; however, NDP MP Bill Siksay of Burnaby-Douglas hopes to do just that. Bill C-389, introduced by Siksay, would add gender identity and gender expression to the list of protected classes in the hate crimes section of the Criminal Code of Canada, and also to the Canada Human Rights Act, which protects against discrimination in housing and employment. On February 9, 2011, the bill passed the House of Commons and and now awaits Senate approval.

When asked about Bill C-389, Matt McLauchlin, Co-chair of the NDP LGBT Committee said, “A clear law banning discrimination based on gender identity or expression would make it clear...that discrimination on these specific grounds is not to be tolerated. This would help not only with litigation but also with public education and similar initiatives to stop transphobia.”

Conservative MP LaVar Payne, of Medicine Hat, Alberta, wrote in a letter to a concerned constituent that broadening identifiable groups in the Criminal Code “will further infringe on Canadians’ right to free speech.” Other right-wing opponents have deemed it “The Bathroom Bill,” suggesting that it would facilitate sexual assault in public washrooms. This attitude demonstrates the current lack of popular education surrounding gender, as well as the portrayal of trans- people as deceptive and suspicious.

However, not all critics of the bill are right-wing. Some trans- organizers argue that C-389 is limited in its analysis of systemic barriers facing the community, while others suggest that it may be more harmful than helpful.

“In a culture that penalizes transgression, legal recognition of gender identity and expression can be important in order to access benefits including housing, legal rights, healthcare and some sense of safety,” says Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, prominent queer anti-war activist and editor of the anthology That’s Revolting!: Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation. “But I don’t think we should be lulled into thinking that legal changes will give us the self-determination that we all deserve.”

“I think that an interesting question to ask might be, ‘Whose lives will it impact?’” says Jackson Ezra of l'Action Sante Travesti(e)s et Transsexuel(le)s du Quebec. ASTTeQ is a group that works to encourage the health and well-being of trans- people through access to resources and support.

“While I think that this bill opens up some really interesting discussions and debates, I [question] the impact that it [would] have on the lives of trans- sex workers, migrant and non-status people, poor people, people who use drugs, people who are homeless and turned away from shelters, people who struggle every day just to get by [and] access basic services, and [those] whose lives and realities are criminalized,” he said.

In 2009, a similar bill—named the Gender Employment Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA)—was proposed and passed in the New York State Assembly, and awaits Senate approval. While garnering the support of many LGBT groups, a coalition of five organizations (The Sylvia Rivera Law Project, FIERCE, Queers for Economic Justice, The Peter Cicchino Youth Project and The Audre Lorde Project) wrote a letter to the GENDA coalition voicing their non-support of the bill, arguing that “[r]ather than serving as protection for oppressed people, the hate crimes portion of this law may expose our communities to more danger—from prejudiced institutions far more powerful and pervasive than individual bigots."

The letter continues:

Hate crime laws are an easy way for the government to act like it is on our communities’ side while continuing to discriminate against us. Institutions can claim 'anti-oppression' legitimacy and win points with communities affected by prejudice, while simultaneously using 'sentencing enhancement' to justify building more prisons to lock us up in. Hate crime laws foreground a single accused individual as the 'cause' of racism, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, or any number of other oppressive prejudices. They encourage us to lay blame and focus our vengeful hostility on one person instead of paying attention to institutional prejudice that fuels police violence, encourages bureaucratic systems to ignore trans- people’s needs or actively discriminate against us, and denies our communities health care, identification, and so much more.

Seeking to address barriers regarding sex designation and identity for trans- citizens, a challenge has recently been launched against the Directeur de l'Etat Civil du Quebec (DECQ) by Elias Dean. “If this case makes it to court,” Dean told The Dominion, “it will be the first time in this province that the bodily autonomy of trans- people is addressed in a court of law.”

Dean explained, “I am a transsexual man whose demand for a change of legal sex designation was recently turned down. It was denied to me because even though I've received a GID diagnosis [trans- people are considered to experience Gender Identity Disorder, a diagnosis within the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders] and have undergone chest reconstruction and hormone therapy, I have not had a hysterectomy. Sterilization is mandatory to access a legal change of sex in Quebec. In the case of trans- women, vaginoplasty is required, and for trans- men, it's a hysterectomy.”

Requirements for changing one's sex marker—that is, the "M" or "F" designated by the state on one's identification—vary from province to province. While Sex Reassignment Surgery (SRS) is not needed for one to change one's legal name, it is consistently required to change the sex marker on provincial identification. The same set of laws are applicable nation-wide, but are inconsistently interpreted provincially.

In June 2010, trans- people and their allies rallied at the the office of the DECQ demanding access to name changes without excessive delay, sex marker changes without forced sterilization, sex marker changes for those without citizenship status (after living within the province for one year), the removal of sex indication on birth certificates, and clear guidelines available online regarding name and sex marker changes. PolitiQ: Queers Solidaires, a queer and trans- collective working towards creating spaces for the open discussion of sexuality and gender, organized the rally, which was endorsed by Stella, the 2110 Centre for Gender Advocacy, l'Association des Transsexuels et Transsexuelles du Quebec (ATQ), Project 10 and ASTTeQ.

Swan Kennedy, a speaker at the rally, expressed the need for identification congruent with one's chosen identity, saying, “We need the DECQ to recognize that our livelihoods and lives are put at risk when we have identification that does not reflect our gender...The DECQ requires that an applicant have a "serious reason" to change their name on identity documents. Surely, discrimination against us [is a] serious reason.”

Dean expands on this, saying, “Having mismatched paperwork jeopardizes our chances of obtaining jobs, housing and health care, [often pushing] us into committing survival crimes, which often results in jail time, with trans- women getting incarcerated in male prisons where they face serious violence, et cetera.”

Whether or not one supports Bill C-389, the right to self-identify is central to ongoing trans- struggles. Trans- movements have been largely grassroots, mobilizing outside of government institutions. With Canada's history of institutional repression of trans- organizing, many question whether or not a representative or a piece of legislation could ever truly address the needs of such a diverse community.

“There are so many ways that trans-, genderqueer, gender defiant and gender nonconforming people continuously challenge the violence of state control of our lives, and [we] need to continue to build our own cultures, values, norms, institutions, and families while challenging all the violence around us," says Sycamore. "[This is] not just a state that asks us to submit to the prying and spying of medical professionals in order to grant us a basic need, but the state that continues all other forms of oppression as well, from oil drilling on Indigenous lands to a continuous crackdown on free speech and freedom of assembly."

“Not all trans- people experience the same kinds of violence, and not all trans- people’s needs are the same. As [allies], we need to understand trans- rights as the fight against police brutality, racist immigration policies, and the struggles against the criminalization of sex work, homelessness and drug use,” says Ezra.

“Even though my being trans- is sometimes a source of grief for me, I am thankful to be part of a resilient community that has found its voice after having our lives narrated through medical discourse for so long—[a community] that is actively organizing and fighting back," adds Dean. "It is thanks to those who have walked this path before me that I can go ahead with this challenge.”

*In this article we use the term "trans-" as an umbrella term to be inclusive of all transsexual, transgendered, gender-variant, genderqueer, and gender nonconforming individuals. While it is not our intention to conflate these identities, we seek to be inclusive.

Jesse Grass is a genderqueer, working-class fuck-up. Nat Gray is a poet, a dumpster skid, and an intern with The Dominion.

GenderIdentity

Less Than Animals

hillarybain — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 05:46:24 +0000

Palestinian women imprisoned by Israel speak out

JERUSALEM—“The Russian Compound...” said Jehan Dahadha, before trailing off. Her gaze shifts to the floor and the 23-year-old Palestinian woman sighs before continuing.

“The level of pain that the prisoners suffer inside the Russian Compound, whether it is psychological or on a physical level, made it so that we call it the ‘Butcher Shop.’ It is not suitable for humans to live there. Even animals, it is not healthy for them.”

At age 19, Dahadha was arrested under Israeli suspicion that she belonged to the Islamic Jihad movement, and was taken away from her home and family in Ramallah, West Bank.

She spent several days being interrogated at the Russian Compound prison facility in Jerusalem before being sentenced to 16 months at Ha’Sharon prison in northern Israel.

“We as Palestinians are all subject to becoming prisoners: my sister, me, my mother, my brother. There is not a single Palestinian house that [does] not suffer whether from demolition or arrest,” said Dahadha, sitting in the offices of Addameer Prisoners Support and Human Rights Association in Ramallah.

Dahadha says the real reason she was arrested was because she engaged in non-violent demonstrations against the Israeli occupation, visited the families of Palestinian political prisoners and helped these prisoners get in touch with lawyers.

“What's behind [the Israeli process of arrest and detention] is not to maintain order or to punish people for violations of laws or committing crimes; the idea is to crush the mentality of resistance or the idea of rejecting the occupation in your mind,” explained Ala Jaradat, Programs Director at Addameer.

Approximately 700,000 Palestinians have been arrested or detained under Israeli military orders since 1967. This accounts for about 20 per cent of the total Palestinian population in the occupied territories, and nearly 40 per cent of the male population.

Over the same time period, nearly 10,000 Palestinian women have been detained.

Presently, 7,000 Palestinians—including over 300 children and 34 women—remain in Israeli prisons. According to Jaradat, the small number of Palestinian women in Israeli jails makes it much more difficult for the prisoners to demand better treatment and rights, as compared to their more numerous male counterparts.

“[Male Palestinian prisoners] can organize themselves in such a way and actually negotiate and resist and struggle to have certain rights and to have a certain level of relations because of the larger number,” Jaradat explained. “With Palestinian women, it's harder to be able to organize because of the smaller number. Whenever they try to [negotiate] they are subjected to harsh treatments."

Dahadha says that despite the research and information she gathered before entering prison, she was shocked by what she saw there.

"I used to read in newspapers and on the Internet about prisoners in prison. But no matter how much you read, you will never understand it until you go there,” she said, explaining that poor lighting, unhealthy food, and the constant presence of insects and cockroaches characterized daily life in Ha'Sharon prison.

“They treat you very badly, not as humans. They make committees for animal rights. But humans for them, especially the Palestinians, are less than animals,” said Dahadha.

According to Jaradat, Israeli prisons sorely lack a gender-sensitive approach and issues such as personal hygiene and medical needs are rarely addressed.

Further, sexual harassment and intimidation are widespread and used as a means to coerce confessions out of Palestinian women during the interrogation process, he says.

While Palestinian women may have a unique experience, many of the injustices widespread in Israeli prisons are shared by both men and women—and are forbidden by international law.

Hiba Hamidat is originally from Jalazone refugee camp, seven kilometers north of Ramallah. She spent 32 months in Ha’Sharon prison in Israel for her participation in demonstrations and support of Palestinian prisoners.

Released just over a year ago, Hamidat explains that the hardest part was being separated from her family, especially her mother, who didn’t have an Israeli ID card and therefore could not enter Israel to visit the prison.

“While I was serving my sentence, my mother couldn’t visit me for one year. For one year, only my father visited me. It was very difficult to see that all the other prisoners had their mothers visiting them, while my mother couldn’t visit,” explained the 24-year-old.

According to Israeli human rights lawyer Lea Tsemel, Hamidat should never have been held in an Israeli jail.

Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states: “Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power are prohibited."

Hamidat’s case is yet another example of how Israel blatantly disregards international law, says Tsemel, especially when it comes to arrest, interrogation and detention procedures for Palestinians.

“[Palestinians] are not recognized prisoners of war. They are held in different prisons within Israel which again is contradictory to the international Geneva Conventions, [which state] that people from the occupied territory will not be shifted to the occupier's territory,” explained Tsemel.

Jaradat, who does prisoner support with Adameer, says that a prisoner’s plight does not end with his or her release from prison. "Once a Palestinian has been to prison, their life will change. The punishments or violations of their rights and restrictions on their lives continue forever by the Israeli occupation," said Jaradat. "It’s never over."

Dahadha can speak to this reality first-hand.

"My life changed," she said. "I was engaged to someone in Jordan, but after I was released they prohibited me from leaving the country. Every time I try to cross the border they turn me back and give me an invitation for interrogation."

Newly engaged and planning her wedding for the fall, Dahada says her new fiance has been threatened with imprisonment by Israeli authorities for his connection to her.

"Even after a prisoner is out of prison," she said with a soft smile, "the torture and sentence does not stop there."

Originally from Montreal, Jillian Kestler-D'Amours is a human rights activist and multimedia journalist presently based in occupied East Jerusalem.

Jehan Dahadha

Central Prison

Women and Children First?

Cameron Fenton — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 09:10:06 +0000

Conservative policy contradicts "maternal and child health" plan

TORONTO—This January, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper called on G8 leaders to make women and children a top priority during the June summit. In a Toronto Star opinion piece, Harper cited a “pressing need for global action on maternal and child health,” and expressed concern for what he called the world’s “most vulnerable populations."

Women’s rights advocates say that since taking office Harper has in fact undermined equality policy and existing advocacy programs.

In The Harper Record, a book published by the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives, the Ad-Hoc Coalition for Women’s Equality and Human Rights documented how, upon gaining power, the Conservatives made drastic cuts to women’s equality programs. They shut down 12 Status of Women offices and defunded the Women’s Program on equality advocacy as well as the Court Challenges Program, a legal program supporting gender equality, among other things.

“The common consensus in the coalition is that Harper’s policies have been a repressive step backwards for the feminist movement in Canada,” Coalition Coordinator Claire Tremblay explained.

In the January 2009 federal budget the Equitable Compensation Act was passed, preventing women in the Public Service from challenging pay-equity cases at the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

Long-time feminist activist Judy Rebick notes that Harper is “ideologically motivated; he does things by stealth, so most of the things he does are under the wire.”

In 1998, Harper declared that “the federal government should scrap its ridiculous pay equity law,” and in 1999 he called human rights commissions “an attack on our fundamental freedoms.” He announced plans to shut down Women’s Commissions in Vancouver, Toronto and Halifax this March.

In April 2010, the Coalition for Pay Equity in New Brunswick was denied funding despite the fact that, as vice-president Denise Savoie noted, the group had fulfilled all requirements for funding. “Evidently, their decision is based on ideology, not on the value of the project or on the group’s ability to reach the objectives,” she said.

According to the Global Gender Gap Index—produced for the World Economic Forum to measure economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, political empowerment, health and survival of women—Canada has fallen 11 places since Harper took office.

Harper’s announcement of the “Women and Children Initiative” came on the heels of the Canadian International Development Agency’s (CIDA) funding cuts to KAIROS, an ecumenical non-profit organization that supports overseas partners addressing the root causes of women’s inequality.

The Popular Feminist Organization (OFP), a grassroots women’s organization in Colombia which runs 22 centres providing legal and health services and youth programs, is one example of the groups to be directly affected by the CIDA cut. For women, “the OFP represents an important democratic space,” said KAIROS’s Latin America specialist Rachel Warden. The organization is “an alternative to the violence, poverty, and human rights abuses that surround them.”

The evolution of the Conservatives’ focus on maternal and child health remains unclear. In his Toronto Star opinion piece, Harper only made vague mention of the need for clean water, inoculations, and the “training of health care workers to care for women and deliver babies.”

Action Canada for Population and Development, a human rights advocacy group, explains that maternal and child health requires a comprehensive approach that includes sexual and reproductive health and rights, with access to family planning, including contraception.

But these recommendations appear to be falling on deaf ears. In an interview this February in Embassy magazine, Minister of International Cooperation Bev Oda stated the government’s plan will not “support access to family planning and contraception.”

In March, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon confirmed that this new priority “does not deal in any way, shape or form with family planning. Indeed, the purpose of this is to be able to save lives.”

Two days later Harper flip-flopped, stating, “We are not closing doors against including contraception, but we do not want a debate here or elsewhere on abortion.”

Meanwhile, the International Planned Parenthood Federation is waiting to hear if an annual $6 million CIDA grant supporting crucial reproductive health and family planning programs will be renewed.

The battle lines have been drawn. But what is at stake?

Financially it is unclear. The 2010 Canadian federal budget increases international aid by $364 million before capping it for subsequent years. The budget states, “Canada will use its leadership...to focus the world’s attention on maternal and child health and will work to secure increased global spending on this priority.” Yet there is no specific monetary allocation for the new initiative.

In ideological terms the stakes are well-defined. Harper told the World Economic Forum “it is...time to mobilize...to do something for those who can do little for themselves. To replace grand good intentions with substantive acts of human good will.” There is no attempt to address the root causes of injustice.

“There is a connection between a woman having control over her body and taking a first step towards empowerment and equality,” notes Tremblay of the Ad-Hoc Coalition. “If a women doesn’t have control over her body how successful can those other initiatives be?”

It isn’t clear what Harper’s G8 Initiative on Women and Children will achieve. On the contrary, given the systematic erosion of work supporting women’s equality and equity, there is a pressing concern that women’s rights will be further undermined.

“Stephen Harper has been a disaster for women,” observes Rebick. “He is the most dangerous prime minister we have ever had. Harper is dismantling Canada as we know it.”

Rusa Jeremic is an Educator, Writer & Satirist based in Toronto. She has an M.A. in Political Science from York University.

This story was published in The Dominion's special issue on the G8 and G20 summits in Ontario. We will continue to publish independent, investigative news about the G8 and G20 throughout the month of June.

For up-to-the-minute G8/G20 news from the streets of Toronto, visit the Toronto Media Co-op.

World Social Forum Kenya

This is Where the Revolution Starts

Maya Rolbin-Ghanie — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 06:42:21 +0000

19th annual Memorial March honours 3,000 missing and murdered women

VANCOUVER—"This is where the injustice starts."

On Valentine's Day in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside (DTES), and in memory of Canada's 3,000 missing and murdered women, Dalannah Bowen addressed 5,000 people from the steps of the Vancouver Police Department.

"This is where it starts for missing and murdered women," said the African-Canadian/Cherokee director of the Interurban Gallery in Vancouver.

Women with stories of friends and relatives gone missing or found dead—and of police inaction and disrespect—followed Bowen to the microphone. February 14 marked the 19th time Vancouver marched for missing and murdered women, and the first time they would march for women in the DTES while the city was otherwise preoccupied with the Olympics. It was day three of the Games.

"Each and every single person is part of this human family. We deserve to be treated like human beings," Bowen said.

Earlier in the morning at the Carnegie Centre, the DTES' "living room" on Main Street, every person gathered for the march witnessed a painful aspect of family: loss.

At 11:30am, 400 people were gathered on the steps of the Carnegie, around the corner, and along the sidewalk on both sides of the building. Most were women. By 12:20, the crowd had quadrupled and extended to all four corners. Buses made it through the intersection with difficulty. By 1pm, the entire intersection was blocked off, and "Carnegie hosts" in yellow vests linked hands, creating a corridor for the families of missing and murdered women to pass into the centre of the crowd. Most were women. Most were Native.

Drummers were invited into the centre, where they created an open space. A cry rose. Hands pointed skyward. Pigeons flapped around the rooftops and seagulls circled. Higher, with unmistakeable white heads and majestic wingspans, two eagles soared.

A woman with black hair in a loose pink shirt stood on the steps of the Carnegie, an eagle feather in her hand and a square of paper pressed to her breast. She raised the feather into the air and began a low wail: a song, a heartbreak. She concentrated on the sky, pleaded with the sky, and cried, her feather trembling.

The drums began and the crowd sang, for half-an-hour, while families filed out of the Carnegie patio and toward the centre of the intersection, holding banners. Some were dressed in Native regalia. Most were women.

The people marched.

"A nation is not conquered until the hearts of its women are on the ground. Then it's lost; it's down. No matter what. No matter how strong its warriors; no matter how powerful its weapons," said Mabel Nipshank, a Metis woman of Cree and French descent. She exposed the original intent in the violence directed against Native women as she spoke from the steps of the police station. The priority for Europeans at first contact with Aboriginals, she said, was the disenfranchisement of women.

"They were afraid of the power of the First Nations women because when First Nations women spoke it echoed like thunder," she said.

Nipshank challenged two groups to collaborate in the demand for justice for killed and disappeared Indigenous women: First Nations leaders and non-Native feminists.

"I don't have a whole lot of trust in our Aboriginal leaders. They are pushing women off our territories and this"—she pointed to a placard with photos of hundreds of young women lost—"is what is happening to us. We need our leaders to challenge the colonial structures that have put us in poverty."

Nipshank called on feminists to quit talking the talk when they cannot walk the walk.

"Sometimes we don't fall into the white feminist ideology. [They] can't comprehend our oppression because [they] don't live it the way we do."

She asked the crowd to consider that the next case of a murdered or disappeared woman could be anyone's daughter, sister, or aunt. "That is why we need to address this collectively. This is our problem as a whole people."

Sirens wailed.

Author Maggie de Vries told marchers about her sister Sarah who had been murdered in Port Coquitlam at Robert Pickton's pig farm.

"The investigation [into Sarah's disappearance and murder] did not have the full support of the province of British Columbia, of the Vancouver Police or of the RCMP. There was a resistance to admit there was anything wrong," she said.

"My sister was picked up, driven along a direct route: down Hastings Street to Boundary Road to the Lougheed Highway and onto Dominion Road. She was driven through a gate, and she never came out."

De Vries said that in order to keep women safe the public needs an independent inquiry into the investigation of Vancouver's missing women. Currently, 38 cases of women missing from the Downtown Eastside remain unsolved.

Cee Jai Julian described the last time she saw her big sister. It was December 14, 1998, and her sister, who was on her way to work, asked Cee Jai to get off the streets.

"Go home, baby girl."

Ann-Marie Monks read a poem, which she wrote for her best friend who disappeared.

"My sister, my friend. Where are you? What happened to you?"

The drums beat, the people marched. The sun shone. It was Valentine's Day.

Moira Peters is an editor at The Dominion. This article was originally published by the Vancouver Media Co-op.

Pink shirt woman march

crowdmarch

"And Then Let's Go For That Justice" Part II

hillarybain — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 10:22:02 +0000

Indigenous women demand respect in Ottawa

In honour of missing and murdered indigenous women, the Walk4Justice began in Vancouver on June 21, Aboriginal Day, and ended with a rally of about 250 on Parliament Hill on September 15.

The following article (part two in a series) explores the profound systemic flaws discussed during speeches at the rally; flaws that continue to encourage a deep-rooted Canadian prejudice against indigenous women, which is being supported by the 2010 Olympic Games and Canada's oil economy, specifically the Alberta Tar Sands.

Part one of this article can be read here.

MONTREAL – When it comes to women losing their homes, Alberta and BC are among the worst in Canada.

Alberta’s "successful" tar sands economy has created a severe lack of affordable housing, transitional housing and shelter spaces, particularly for women.

Women are often dissuaded from pursuing the resources and abilities essential to benefiting from the booming industry. Unequal wages, gender discrimination and sexual harassment are all significant deterrents. Those profiting most from the oil and gas workforce are predominantly male; current male-female ratios are 79 to 21 per cent for geoscientists and 96 to four per cent for trades.

Contributing to this imbalance is the fact that the exorbitant cost of rent makes it next to impossible for many women in Alberta to afford a home, unless their wages can compete with those in the oil industry.

In the oil town of Fort McMurray, where the housing crisis is rampant, none of the shelters accept minors. A report released by the region's Homelessness Initiatives Steering Committee found that some teenagers are resorting to sex-work in exchange for shelter for a night.

For those women who do manage to find a shelter, Alberta has no transitional housing program. As a result, there is often nowhere for them to go from a shelter, except back to the street.

“A longer-term transition house is what is needed, one that can be used for as long as people need. A house that has passion for the survival of a whole generation to get past this terrible point of life, in which they did not mean to live,” says Nicole Tait, a youth attending the Walk4Justice rally.

Under the Harper Conservatives, cuts to legal aid and income assistance, the closure of women's centres, political assaults on women's advocacy and support services, a lack of childcare support, cuts to welfare and changes to eligibility for welfare, the rising cost of living, and low-income work all contribute heavily to the significant disadvantage that many First Nations women face. The BC Human Rights Commission and Ministry of Women's Equality, both considered tools to fight discrimination, have also been eliminated.

The number of homeless in Vancouver doubled in 2005 and is predicted to triple due to the 2010 Olympic Games. These figures do not account for a much larger population that pays for sub-standard housing. According to the 2005 Greater Vancouver Homeless Count, there are 300,000 (official) homeless in Greater Vancouver, 30 per cent of whom are First Nations people, despite the fact that they make up just two per cent of the city's total population.

An endless host of Canadian development projects, from massive tar sands extraction sites to ventures intended to facilitate the 2010 Games, have rendered homeless many First Nations people who originally subsisted on their traditional territories or on government-assigned reserves. Many are compelled to move to large urban centres in search of work or to escape their consequently depressed communities.

The same pattern of forced displacement of First Nations communities and individuals is happening all over Canada.

For example, in Alberta, Indigenous people living on reserves close to tar sands plants, residing downstream from tailings ponds, or dwelling on land slated to accommodate government pipelines have a hard battle to fight: against health problems of all kinds – including soaring rates of cancer which are picking off their friends and family members at an alarming pace – and against a government that is constantly attempting to push them farther off of their land for the purpose of extraction and exploration. Many of these people, such as those in the northern Alberta communities of Fort Chipewyan and Fort MacKay, are fighting to stop the pollution and destruction of their homes, some are deriving what benefit they can from jobs in the tar sands industry, and others are leaving their reserves with little or no money to attempt a better life in Edmonton, Calgary, or Fort McMurray.

Similarly, the Olympic Games are acting as an unwelcome catalyst for many First Nations people living in BC, a number of whom have been embroiled in bitter land rights battles with the Canadian government for most of their lives. Rivers, mountains, lakes, creeks, and old-growth forests, along with trap lines, hunting grounds, salmon stocks, animal habitats, sacred sites, and important food and medicine harvesting areas are being substituted by tourist resorts and highway expansions, like the Sea-to-Sky Highway from Vancouver to Whistler. With vast areas of unceded land, on which indigenous communities depend for their general survival, being destroyed, many First Nations people have been, and continue to be, drawn into cities to seek out new modes of subsistence, often only to discover that they lack the resources necessary to make a living in foreign urban surroundings.

The Secwepemc people of Skelkwek'welt and the St'at'imc people of Sutikalh have long resisted the establishment of Sun Peaks and Cayoosh ski resorts (intended to attract and accommodate tourists, Olympic athletes and trainers) on their land. Powerful and well-thought-out demonstrations of their opposition have been disregarded, ignored and covered-up by the BC government in attempts to profit from a territory for which treaties were never signed.

Native Youth Movement (NYM) member Kanahus Pelkey of the Secwepemc and Ktunaxa First Nations recalls the tactics employed by Sun Peaks to facilitate the construction of their ski resort:

The province bulldozed our home on International Human Rights Day. They hired Sun Peaks employees to tear down our sweat lodges. So you get an idea what happens when Native people stand up and fight for their freedom. We announced it to the media, and all the corporate media, they showed up at Sun Peaks, but the roads were deactivated. They [Sun Peaks] made big, huge ice blockades so no vehicles could get through. And Sun Peaks resort has many, many snowmobile businesses, but all the businesses were given orders by Sun Peaks not to rent any snowmobiles to any media, or anybody that day.

The Secwepemc people, rendered homeless and faced with the threat of arrest if they continued living on their land, retreated, some to Vancouver. Many had endured previous arrests for similar involvements and did not want to risk imprisonment with no chance of bail.

First Nations women living in the city are more susceptible than men to losing their homes due to abuse or conflict with a spouse or caretaker upon whom they are financially dependent. Because women are more likely to have children to look after, and are less likely to feel safe on the street or in shelters where men are also present, many return to abusive relationships when there is no alternative available.

Across Canada, there are more women among the Aboriginal homeless population than are found in the non-Aboriginal population. According to Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC), 35 per cent of the Aboriginal homeless population in Greater Vancouver is female, compared to only 27 per cent among the non-Aboriginal homeless population.

First Nations women are also vastly overrepresented in Canada’s community of sex-workers, and continue to be brutally criminalized by the police and simultaneously marginalized and taken advantage of by society in general.

In 2003, Pelkey, forcibly separated from her baby boy, spent two-and-a-half months in prison for her involvement with the Sun Peaks protests. During her incarceration, she met many First Nations women who had been imprisoned for sex-work and drug abuse. Most of the women's stories involved sexual molestation during childhood. Many women had experienced these abuses in residential schools, while others were the children of residential school survivors.

Aboriginal rights lawyer and President of the NWAC Beverly Jacobs stresses that often police lack an understanding of the cycles of abuse that occur within Native communities, and, as a result, do not possess the empathy necessary to view women on the streets as part of the public. As such, they do not feel responsible for the protection of these women. Jacobs has worked with Amnesty International as a lead researcher and consultant on their report “Stolen Sisters: Discrimination and Violence Against Indigenous Women in Canada.”

The controversial BC Coalition of Experiential Communities (BCCEC), the first sex-worker co-operative in Canada, is the brainchild of sex-worker Susan Davis, who has been trying to pressure the government to create legal brothels for the upcoming Winter Olympics in 2010. Despite the decriminalization of sex workers being one of the BCCEC's primary motives, the issue is contentious both among Canada's political elite and among sex-workers themselves. The move had the support of Vancouver’s then-Mayor, Sam Sullivan, and VANOC (the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games), but has so far been refused by Canadian Justice Minister Rob Nicholson.

Tait finds it difficult to understand sex-workers who support the move, and does not envision the legalization of brothels solving the problem of police brutality and societal marginalization.

“They are [Vancouver is] basing their research on one woman’s point of view for creating [legal] brothels in the DTES [Downtown Eastside]. This woman [Davis] is a prostitute by choice who doesn't have to make a living from the streets. She says that she enjoys what she does. I never met one woman who said that they enjoy being a prostitute, they say that’s just the way things happened. Others are trying to make a living for their family, which includes young mothers who are trying to put food on the table for their babies.”

Tsimshian youth, co-ordinator of North Coast Enviro Watch and member of Native 2010 Resistance Dustin Johnson notes that the Olympic tradition of catering to the elite as a means of social control can be referred to as a policy of "sex, screens and sports," a phrase coined to describe the 1988 Seoul Games. A massive influx of prostitution, coupled with the pseudo-legalization of the sex industry for the benefit of elite athletes and businessmen, has always been an Olympic norm.

Johnson maintains that not all sex-workers even made a career choice to begin with.

"You actually see, at some of the elementary schools in Vancouver, sexual predators, just waiting around to try to kidnap young Native kids. Some of these kids end up in the sex-slave industry, they get shipped all over the world. This is the kind of industry that VANOC and the people that are organizing the Olympics in Vancouver are trying to continue.”

Jacobs, too, stresses that the issue of violence against Aboriginal peoples in general and Aboriginal women in specific is not a three-decade concern, but instead extends to the past 300 years. The crisis is one of historic proportions. A report she wrote for the Native Women's Association of Canada looked to the history of colonization, and how it has affected Aboriginal women.

“Because a lot of First Nations cultures were matriarchal, women have suffered the brunt of colonization,” says Jacobs.

Her studies reveal that white policymakers noted the remarkable strength of First Nations women, and found ways of demeaning it. Despite the fact that many clans, and by extension, the status of individuals, were once determined matrilineally, the Canadian government’s invention of the status card changed this: status became determined by the male alone, creating a severe disconnect between Native people and their cultures. The previously significant responsibility of men to act as protectors was also adversely affected by this forced shift, creating internal oppression in First Nations communities that is still very present today.

“The responsibilities and the roles that come with being a Native woman are very highly respected, or at least they were. [First Nations people are] still having to deal with the issues internally within our communities because we’ve learned those patriarchal values and we’ve learned them really well,” observes Jacobs.

About half-way through the colourful roster of speeches on Parliament Hill, one of Prime Minister Harper’s aids came to formally accept the women’s documented demands. Dressed all in grey, he gripped the bright pink folder firmly, saying, “I will deliver this to Mr. Harper” as the crowd murmured their skeptical thanks.

But Akwesasne Elder and Bear Clan mother Harriet Boots quickly brought people back to the core of the matter.

“Every person today has a lot of tears. Let’s make it our strength. Let’s go ahead and cry. Take it all out of our system. And then let’s go for that justice.”

Maya Rolbin-Ghanie is a freelance journalist, creative writer, and barista living in Montreal.

An original version of this article was published by Oil Sands Truth (Fall 2008 print issue).

Missing women's memorial, Vancouver, 2007

Missing Women

"And Then Let's Go for that Justice" Part I

Maya Rolbin-Ghanie — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 09:47:13 +0000

The Walk4Justice

This article is part one of two on the Walk4Justice.

OTTAWA – It was hard to miss the giant Mohawk and Iroquois flags painting the parliament buildings with their splashes of red, yellow, brown and blue. On September 15, a crowd of about 250 was gathered in Ottawa for the Walk4Justice Rally. Even at ten a.m., there was a strong, shocking feeling of possibility in the air. This feeling would only grow as the five-hour stretch of speeches progressed, making parliament feel much more like a sacred village square.

According to a Canadian government statistic, young Indigenous women are five times more likely than other women of the same age to die as the result of violence. In honour of missing and murdered indigenous women, the Walk4Justice began in Vancouver on June 21, 2008, Aboriginal Day. Many First Nations women, men and children participated from across the country, walking for 87 days, ending in Ottawa on September 15.

The journey began with a vigil at the notorious Pickton farm site, where confessed serial killer Robert Pickton murdered 30 women (many of whom were sex-workers from Vancouver, and a third of whom were Native).

Among the many powerful speakers at the rally in Ottawa was a group of First Nations women who have devoted their lives to unpaid, front-line work with women living in Vancouver’s poverty-stricken Downtown East Side (DTES).

Bernie Williams is a front-line worker, residential school survivor, and Matriarch in the House of the Raven. She spoke of a lack of support for the Walk from Vancouver as well as a less than smooth experience along the way.

"It’s been a long walk and a very emotional one. I would be lying to you if I said that everything was all rosy out there on this journey. It hasn’t been. Since we left BC, we’ve been followed. One of our women has been stalked...We have compiled names all through the nation, all through your territories. We’ve added another three more in the last couple of days."

The Walkers began with a list of 500 — a rough estimate of the number of missing and murdered First Nations women in Canada over the last three decades (76 of whom were from the DTES), and by the time they arrived in Ottawa, they had compiled a list of 3,000 women. Upon their arrival, there were three more women to add to the list, two of whom are teens from nearby Maniwaki recently found to be missing.

The aim of the Walk was to deliver the list of names to the Canadian government and demand public inquiries into the many violent deaths.

Also present at the rally was Aboriginal rights lawyer and president of the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC), Beverly Jacobs, from the Mohawk Nation Bear Clan in Six Nations Grand River. Jacobs has worked with Amnesty International as a lead researcher and consultant on their report "Stolen Sisters: Discrimination and Violence Against Indigenous Women in Canada." One of the many recommendations included in the report was that Canada should support research into the causes of violence against Indigenous women. There are currently no statistics on the number of missing and murdered Aboriginal women, only estimates. She noted that although Canada is aware that reports have been done, many have been shelved or ignored.

Seventy-four-year-old Mabel Todd, who has seen four of her family members disappear, participated in the entire walk, making it clear that she would not be ignored.

Cecilia, an Elder from Tofino, BC, cried while speaking of her missing granddaughter, Lisa Marie, who disappeared in 2002.

"My daughter and I have a candle vigil every year, the day she went missing. We light candles, give out posters, T-shirts, hoping that somebody will see. Who knows what happened to her."

Richie Dominic walked for his aunt, Ramona Wilson, who went missing in 1994 at the age of 16 on BC’s now infamous Highway 16. After ten months, her remains were found, but no one has been held accountable to this day, and there are countless cases just like hers.

"Justice would mean a final bit of closure," says Dominic. "This is what we need [pointing at the crowd]. We need numbers. We need to show Canada that we do care. That the country does care."

The speakers, who ranged from youth to Elders in their nineties, emphasized the fact that most of the cases they were addressing had not been taken very seriously by police or the media. When the missing or murdered women happen to be sex-workers, they are taken even less seriously and their disappearances or deaths are rarely, if ever, investigated to the point of resolution.

In a radio interview, Jacobs cites the case of Pamela George as an example of prevalent attitudes that act as obstacles to justice.

George was a 28-year-old mother of two who struggled with poverty and occasionally worked the sex-trade in Regina. She was murdered in 1995 by two white, male university students who picked her up, beat her severely and left her by the side of the road.

Testimony at the trial indicated that the two men had attempted to pick up another Indigenous woman before they had encountered George. The woman testified that when she had refused to go with them they had called her "Indian trash" and a "squaw slut."

According to a friend of one of the killers who also testified, one of the young men later bragged about picking up an "Indian hooker," saying "She deserved it. She was an Indian."

The case was tried before a white judge and all-white jury. The men were each sentenced to a short six years in prison. According to Amnesty’s Stolen Sisters Report, little attention was paid to the victim throughout the trial; her sex-work was the main focus. The Crown prosecutor told the jury to consider the fact that she was a prostitute, "far-removed from them," and the judge told them to bear in mind her profession when they considered whether or not she had consented to sexual activity. A Court of Appeal decision briefly considered the prosecutor and judge’s comments and concluded they "were not made for the purpose of conveying a negative view of the victim to the jury."

Amnesty International expressed concern that comments of this type might reflect social attitudes faced by sex-workers in general, and Indigenous sex-workers in particular.

Jacobs cites the case of Helen Betty Osbourne as an example of the attitudes of many police authorities, also standing in the way of justice.

Osborne was a Cree woman, kidnapped and murdered by four white men in 1971. A Manitoba Justice Inquiry later concluded that the Canadian Justice Authorities had failed Osbourne, and criticized a "sloppy, racially biased investigation" that took over 15 years, and brought only one man to justice. The inquiry concluded that police had long been aware of who had been responsible for the murder.

Thirty-three years later, when Osborne’s cousin was murdered, the police reaction was similar. According to the young woman’s family, officers showed up at two a.m., interrogated everyone present, and searched their home. It was only six weeks later, when the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs (AMC) held a press conference, that an investigation finally commenced. The former pow-wow dancer’s body was eventually found.

Walker Brenda Wilson explains why many families of victims eventually give up on police and the media:

"There’s a lot of barriers to face in finding your loved one. You have to prove to the authorities that your loved one is missing, that they didn’t just run away. And you also have to prove to them that they’re not all the same case…They each are an individual person, and they each have different cases…They need to be individuals, because when they left this world, they were individuals."

Wilson points out that many missing and murdered First Nations women have been stuck with the same label, which reads: "Highway of Tears," and not given much more thought. More than 30 women have gone missing or been found murdered on BC’s Highway 16 in the past 30 years. The RCMP has confirmed four murders and five disappearances linked to the Highway of Tears, only one of whom was non-Native.

Many families are very angry about how they have been treated by police, and object to having to wait a year or more in some cases for investigations to commence, if they do at all.

Seeing little progress in police investigations, BC private investigator Ray Michalko, a former RCMP officer, started probing into the cases at his own expense in 2006. Michalko has had to contend with numerous warnings from RCMP that he could be charged with obstruction of justice if he does not "tread carefully," almost ending his investigations more than once.

Walker Gladys Radek describes how front-line workers stand in for both police and media on a daily basis. Radek, like Bernie Williams, works front line in the DTES with homeless and poverty-stricken women, many of whom work in the sex-trade for survival.

"Families have approached us before they even go to the police. I remember families walking up to Bernie on the street: Have you seen my daughter, Have you seen my son? This is the kind of work she does and everybody knows it. She doesn’t get paid for what she does. None of us get paid for what we do. We work from our heart.”"

Maya Rolbin-Ghanie grew up in the woods and hopes to make it back there at some point. She currently studies life and works from Montreal.

The original version of this article was published in Oil Sands Truth (Fall 2008 print issue).

Walkers 4 Justice on Parliament Hill in Ottawa

Crowd Members at the Walk4Justice in Ottawa

Gender, Race, and Religious Freedom

Stuart Neatby — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 21:17:16 +0000

The Bouchard-Taylor Commission's Hijacking of 'Gender Equality'

Last November, the West Coast LEAF (Legal Education and Action Fund) issued a report based on its Women's Equality and Religious Freedom Project (WERF). Some of the overarching questions that the Project explored were “What is the nature of religious discrimination experienced by women of faith? What are the ways in which women balance and navigate the experiences of discrimination and interlocking systems of oppression in their daily lives?” The report also addresses specific areas such as same-sex marriage; polygamy; use of religious arbitration in family law; and immigration law. The full report can be found here.

The Taylor-Bouchard Commission on "reasonable accommodation" in Québec has prompted a great deal of commentary on the relationship between gender equality and freedom of religion. For instance, the Conseil du statut de la femme du Québec (CSF) has recommended that the Québec Charter of Rights and Freedoms be amended so that gender equality is given relative priority over the right to religious expression.

In light of these developments, the Dominion interviewed Harsha Walia, who authored the report based on Advisory Committee discussions, to get an anti-racist and feminist perspective.

The Dominion: Why is religious freedom a feminist issue?

Harsha Walia: This is an important issue because the “religious freedom debate” actually has less to do with religion or secularism than it does with race. Particularly in the post 911 climate, religion is a highly politicized, racialized, and publicly constructed identity. For example, invoking a Muslim identity is not about defining the beliefs of a person of Muslim faith; rather, it is a euphemism for Arabs, Middle Easterners, and South Asians (who may not actually be Muslim). In the context of the “War on Terror” this racialized imagery is very important, as there is a need to have an identifiable ‘enemy’ who is supposedly threatening Western values. The use of such language and imagery is rooted in a colonial legacy; therefore fighting patriarchy is intrinsically linked to fighting colonization and racism.

This is also an issue for feminists because feminism is currently being, as it historically has been, co-opted by imperial and colonizing forces. Historian Leila Ahmed has written, “Whether in the hands of patriarchal men or feminists, the ideas of western feminism essentially functioned to morally justify the attack on native societies and to support the notion of the comprehensive superiority of Europe.” An increasing number of feminists have expressed concerns regarding various state interventions on behalf of the “disempowered foreign woman”. For example, feminists have questioned the use of “protecting women” as a rationale for the occupation of Afghanistan. Similarly, the discourse surrounding human trafficking taps into notions of victimized Third World women and justifies restrictive border controls.

Dominion: What do you think about the discourse of "reasonable accommodation" that has come to dominate public discussions in Québec?

HW: It is astounding how many people who identify themselves as pro-feminist are expressing the need to ‘save women from the hijab’ and how there needs to be ‘limits to multiculturalism.’

First, it is hypocritical to talk about Canada’s “over-tolerance” of multiculturalism when the very nature of the debate positions racialized immigrant communities as not ‘belonging’ to Canadian society; as
Outsiders” who need to be accommodated. It reveals the shallow self-congratulatory nature of Canadian multiculturalism under which rests a fundamentally white national consciousness. Second, such a debate aims to portray a sense of victimization where Canadian culture is being violated by “Outsiders.” This process of demonization, ‘othering’ and racism that targets particular communities for greater scrutiny has very real consequences in the present day context, being used to sell illegal wars and occupations across the globe, and restricting the rights and civil liberties of migrants within these borders.

It is also problematic to talk about secularism in a seemingly neutral way as it ignores the foundations of Christianity within the Canadian state and the violent role that Christianity has played in colonizing and assimilating indigenous peoples for example. It is also ironic that many of those rejecting the “authority” of religion so readily accept the authoritative ideologies of capitalism, consumerism, and liberal secularism, which are far more normalized in Western societies.

The most damaging consequence of this debate is that it removes the capacity for women’s agency by reinforcing the idea that being a ‘Muslim feminist’ for example is impossible; forcing women to accept narrower definitions of self, despite occupying multiple locations across citizenship, religion, class, sexuality, and race. Furthermore, discussions of gender inequality ‘within’ certain religions or cultures renders invisible the universal systems of patriarchy that all women contend with, while homogenizing and fossilizing religions in definitive ways.

Dominion: In the report, I found your critique of the distinction between polygamy and polyamory compelling. Can you elaborate?

HW: One of the major problems with the distinction between polygamy and polyamory is that it relies on and perpetuates racist assumptions. While polyamory is used to define a relationship based on mutual negotiation between “independent people,” polygamy refers to a “cultural practice.” Such a dichotomy reinforces assumptions that women in racialized cultures are being more exploited and less independent than “autonomous women” from dominant white cultures.

This is not to suggest that polygamy cannot be critiqued; it is to highlight this double standard and how such differentiations are based on the premise that racialized cultures are inherently more hostile to women. The reality is that the practice of both polygamy and heterosexual polyamory exist within a global context of systemic discrimination against women and girls. The current-day reality is that 99% of polygamous marriages are characterized by men having multiple wives. But it is dangerous to suggest that the roots of polygamy lie in ‘religious culture’ because cultures and religions do not offer homogenous narratives. Various conservative ideologies are on the rise across the globe because that is the socio-political context within which we are operating. Religion can be used to justify polygamy, but if we recognize that the current practice of polygamy is not about a particular religion or culture (which reinforces racism) -- it is, rather, a manifestation of a universal system of patriarchy -- then we can more readily reject those “freedom of religion” arguments that are used to prevent discussion about the effects on women in an anti-racist manner.

Dominion: How should feminists be addressing the issue of religious freedom as it intersects with the marginalization of racialized, immigrant, and indigenous women?

HW: We must contend with the reality that culturally-imperialist feminisms are being forced upon women across the world and the narrative of women’s rights serves as a crucial tool in the pro-war and anti-immigrant propaganda machine. Such a theft of feminist principles is advancing everything but genuine equality for women. Instead, we must choose a path that is feminist as well as anti-racist, anti-militarist, pro-immigration, queer- and trans-positive, and class-conscious. This includes questioning and challenging the legitimacy given to state-based responses such as prisons as a solution to violence, border controls as a solution to trafficking, child apprehension as a solution to women and child poverty, and militarization as a solution to third world women’s liberation.

It is important to avoid falling into the racist traps that infantilize racialized women, while at the same time maintaining a basic commitment to gender and sexual equality that cannot be breached by religious or cultural justifications. We must avoid a culturally imperialist feminism that seeks to impose Western notions of gender equality and ‘sameness’ onto other women. This does not imply that we become culturally relativist and begin to support any unjust practice. Cultural diversity or freedom of religion should not serve as a shield to scrutinize against gender-oppressive practices.

Walking this line requires us to pay attention to specific contexts, to listen to those women whose rights we purport to stand for, and to understand that we occupy different relationships of power and privilege. All oppressed women equally deplore sexism and misogyny, but women’s liberation movements must be culturally sensitive and relevant so as to oppose patriarchal elements without attacking or destroying non-white cultures, religions, or identities. Women of colour and indigenous women have consistently pointed out that reducing their oppression to their ‘culture’ represents deeply colonial attitudes. The greater oppression that some women face is directly linked to policies of the state, histories of colonization, the nature of capitalism, and the powerful rise of global conservative ideologies. Most importantly, we must walk alongside those women who are on the front lines of their own struggles and who are agents of their own transformation. They do not need pity or charity, but solidarity and our respect for their leadership and agency.

All opinions expressed are of Harsha Walia alone and do not imply endorsement by West Coast LEAF or other participants in the Project.

Accommodate This

For Many Women, Alberta's Boom a Bust

dru — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 02:30:15 +0000

Rising housing costs, lack of alternatives lead to precarious situations

Driven by the tar sands, Alberta's white-hot economy continues to make headlines. But the gendered repercussions of the province's boom are often neglected, understated, or altogether denied.

Alberta's tar sands operations have made the province an attractive point of relocation for many in the last couple of decades. A large number of jobs have been created, many paying six-figure salaries. Other industries, most notably the service sectors, have had to compete with these salaries in a struggle to retain workers. As wages have been pushed higher in order to lure employees, rent has increased as landlords capitalize on the increases in income. Those without the resources or skills to tap into Alberta's renowned boom and profit from it are the most likely to have to deal with its negative consequences.

In the case of the tar sands, women have often been discouraged from pursuing the very resources and skills necessary to capitalize on the booming industry.

This is due in part to many female workers' experiences with sexual harassment, gender discrimination and unequal wages. Sixteen years ago, Mobil Oil's first female landman, Delorie Walsh, submitted a claim of gender discrimination, a poisoned work environment and unequal pay. She was finally compensated in October 2007.

Those benefiting most from the oil and gas workforce are male. For example, current male/female ratios are 79 to 21 per cent for geoscientists and 96 to 4 per cent for trades.

The significant gendered imbalance of access to jobs means unequal access to housing. Observers say this has led to a steady decline in quality of life for women. "The boom is great if you're a CEO in downtown Calgary," says Edmonton NDP MLA Ray Martin. "Saskatoon is now experiencing a mini-boom too. But this means that more and more people are falling behind." The "successful" economy has created an urgent lack of affordable housing, transitional housing, and shelter spaces, particularly for women.

Women tend to be more susceptible to losing their homes due to abuse or conflict with a spouse or caretaker upon whom they are financially dependent. Because women are more likely to have children to look after, and are less likely to feel safe on the street or in shelters where men are also present, many return to abusive relationships when there is no alternative shelter available.

This is one of the reasons why men make up the more visible segment of homeless populations, says author Susan Scott. Earlier this year, Scott interviewed over 60 homeless women across Canada about their lives. She is critical of the limited definition of the term "homeless."

"If a woman is sleeping with her landlord to maintain a roof over her head, then she is homeless," says Scott. "Other women will do it for money for drugs, to medicate a trauma that they've suffered which has gone untreated--they are also homeless. Others will hang out in a bar, hoping for a bed and a safe place--they are also homeless."

The Women's Emergency Accommodation Centre (WEAC) in Edmonton is the most well known of less than a handful of women's shelters in the city. It can accommodate just 75 women per night, and there are generally 25 to 30 women staying there for a longer term, which means fewer beds available for those seeking emergency shelter.

Amy Gillis, an inner-city physician in Edmonton, says there are few other options for women seeking shelter. "There's the George Spadie Centre, but you usually have to be intoxicated to go there. There's the Hope Centre, but they have far fewer spaces available for women than men. There are not enough absolute spaces for women, and there is little stability in these places."

The shelter situation in Fort McMurray is grimmer still. Currently, none of the shelters there accept minors. A report released this month by the region's Homelessness Initiatives Steering Committee found that some teenagers are resorting to prostitution in exchange for a bed or couch for the night.

Jan Reimer, Provincial Co-ordinator of the Alberta Council of Women's Shelters and a former mayor of Edmonton, says the need for spaces far outstrips supply. "Last year, we served 13,000 women and children. On top of that, 25,000 could not be accommodated and 15,000 simply could not find a place to stay. Only four shelters in Alberta have all of their beds funded by the province. The capacity really needs to be increased."

Part of the reason there are so many more women and children in need of shelter than there is shelter space is that Alberta has no transitional housing program. As a result, there is often nowhere for them to go from the shelter, except back to the street. Establishing a good transitional housing program would help women dealing with trauma, or legal issues, but more importantly, it would buy time, which is what many need most. "A lot of women can't find a place to live, due to a lack of references, or a bad history with landlords. What they need is physical support in the community," says Gillis.

Affordable, quality child care is one indication of a community's support of women. A lack of child care can result in women's inability to access social services necessary to get out of shelters. Alberta is the only Canadian province that has not added child care spaces over the last 15 years. In fact, it is the only province that has seen a decrease; between 1992 and 2004, the number of spaces dropped by 7.2 per cent.

Despite a serious lack of child care spaces, Alberta's population is growing at five times the national rate, and faster than anywhere in the Western world. The strong economy has encouraged migration to the province, which has contributed to a 10.4 per cent increase in total population since 2001, and a rental vacancy rate of 0.9 per cent--the lowest in a generation, and a third of the national average.

If current economic growth continues apace to 2025, the province could face an estimated shortfall of 332,000 workers, many of whom are expected to come from other countries, and will also need places to live. Already, housing formerly considered affordable has been purchased for "worker housing." There now exists a new group of workers that cannot afford to pay rent. In Fort McMurray, for example, it is common to pay over $1,000 for one room.

"Not enough money is being spent on infrastructure to keep up with the speed of tar sands development," says Ray Martin. "I think that there are just too many tar sands projects going on right now. There should be fewer projects."

Federal Liberal cuts to social infrastructure in the 1990s and decades of provincial Conservative inaction on social housing have together set the stage for Alberta's current housing crisis. Alberta's Affordable Housing Task Force, which toured in the spring of this year, found that Calgary's 2006 homeless count indicated a 32 per cent increase over the past two years. Edmonton showed an increase of 19 per cent, while Fort McMurray's homeless population rose by 24 per cent. Housing prices in Calgary have soared by 50 to 60 per cent in the last year alone, and by an average of 14 per cent in all of Alberta.

Alberta has yet to adopt rent-increase guidelines similar to those employed in Ontario or BC. Of all the recommendations made by Alberta's Affordable Housing Task Force, the most controversial item by far was the proposal to introduce rent control. According to Martin, who supports the recommendations, the Task Force, for the purpose of proposing effective measures, presented a package deal which would have to have been accepted in totality or not at all.

For example, a law stipulating the amount of legal increases, and a law limiting rent increases to only once a year, are complementary, whereas picking and choosing from the recommendations creates loopholes. "There is resistance to approving the whole package," says Martin.

"One of the main arguments is that accepting rent controls would provide even less incentive for the government to create much needed affordable housing. But the fact remains that there are no limits on rent and I still haven't seen more affordable housing being created."

A tenancy law passed in May that promises tenants a full year's eviction notice (when landlords plan to convert their apartments to condos) is being avoided in practice through a number of loopholes. The full year's notice only applies to periodic tenants, whose leases are renewed without notice. For everyone else, the majority of whom are fixed-term tenants, the lease ends on the date indicated, and no notice has to be given by the landlord to end the tenancy.

Dania Kochan, an Edmonton resident whose lease had expired, had made an agreement with her landlord to rent on a month-to-month basis. In June, she was given one month's eviction notice, and told by Service Alberta, the government branch that oversees and enforces tenancy laws, to "get a lawyer" when she complained.

Jim Gurnett of the Edmonton Coalition on Housing and Homelessness (ECOHH) finds the situation tiring. "Poor tenants are not a high priority," says Gurnett.

"Just as long as the government can point to a law that's there to protect them," they feel that's enough. There were 4,100 condo conversions in Calgary between January and May of this year, and the number keeps rising.

Alberta's housing crisis is massive and affects people across demographic boundaries. "Employees at Calgary women's shelters are as in need of affordable housing as the women they serve," says Reimer. "What's worse, the salaries being paid in the oil industry are so high, they can't find people to work in donut shops, let alone shelters."

The province has resorted to hiring government employees from the service sector and has successfully recruited employees from women's shelters. Women's shelter workers see this as adding insult to injury. Reimer cites occurrences of workers from women's shelters being lured from their jobs for positions at Dunkin' Donuts, a company known to offer 'signing bonuses' of $1,500 to increase their chances of acquiring staff.

"What needs to happen immediately," says Reimer, "is a government investment that will allow the [human services] sector to provide competitive wages and benefits that will attract and retain a workforce. Frontline shelter workers need to be respected by the government."

Susan Scott says that there is no substitute for a real strategy for dealing with homelessness. The responsibility, she says, lies with the government and with the people of Alberta.

"Alberta is really good at band-aid solutions," says Scott. "People will give at Christmas, and Thanksgiving, so you can see it's really not a thorough process; we give, and we turn right around and blame the victims. No housing means that people will be homeless. Shelter is a right. Society has set it up so access is limited to those who can afford it."

The Edmonton Small Press Association contributed information and contacts to this article.

Housing Demonstration

Housing Demonstration 2