The women -- second to none

Aboriginal women have been second to none in fighting for their rights, from the right to self-determination to "women's rights," those rights which belong specifically to women in their role as mothers, the care of youth, proper housing, etc. They are the most oppressed collective in Canadian society. Statistics on any question, whether poverty, infant mortality, homelessness, life expectancy, suicide, violent deaths, education or employment, income, incarceration, access to health care show that the situation facing aboriginal peoples is actually getting worse as well as being far below the national average.

 

 

 

Fishermen of Burnt Church -- The mothers and grandmothers of Esgenoopetitj return from checking their lobster traps, August, 2000. Mi'kmaq women were baiting and hauling traps for their livelihood and standing tall against dfo and rcmp repression. On September 12, 30 occupied a DFO office in Tracadie-Sheila . Photo courtesy of Christian Peacekeepers

For aboriginal women, the continued facts of high child mortality, poverty, violence perpetrated against them are an indictment. These are not merely problems of "aboriginal women." If it were their problem alone they would have solved it a long time ago. It is a problem of a society where the well-being of the people should be put in first place.

Maliseet women of Tobique in northern New Brunswick courageously fought against appalling housing conditions and discriminatory provisions of the Indian Act in the 1970s and early 1980s. Photo from Enough is Enough, Janet Silman, Women's Press, 1997

sInnu women demonstrate against nato overflights and for self-determination for their homeland which they call Nitassinan in the mid 1980s. The 20,000 Innu -- not to be confused with their neighbours the Inuit, or Eskimo -- are the indigenous people of most of the Labrador-Quebec peninsula. Photo from Survival

 
The federal government has further cut funding to the Institute for the Advancement of Aboriginal Women organization. A funding "privilege" is withdrawn when the government does not like the stands which the organizations in question take. This situation is entirely unacceptable. Not only should funding be provided but it must be provided "without strings." -- The Editor