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Yet, Canadians are still largely misinformed about the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls crisis. The same research found that only four per cent of non-Indigenous Canadians can identify that the MMIWG crisis is a challenge that Indigenous communities face.

This is sobering given that the UN Special Rapporteur argued that “Indigenous women face marginalization, exclusion and poverty because of institutional, systemic, and other forms of discrimination that have not been addressed adequately by the State.” The inquiry’s final report not only suggests that violence against Indigenous women and girls has been ignored by the state, but that it has been perpetrated by the state.

At every level, Canadian society has harmed Indigenous women and girls. Whether it is the inadequate police investigations, the lack of support to Indigenous people given by the criminal justice system, of the disproportionate number of incarcerated Indigenous women, all contribute to the violence that Indigenous women and girls experience.

The publication of the final report of the MMIWG may mark the end of one narrative and the beginning of a new one. Understanding the violence that Indigenous women and girls experienced as one of longstanding colonial policies, rather than a result of individual choice, Canadians may be better able to identify and sympathize with the fact that violence against Indigenous women is a serious challenge Indigenous communities have faced at the hands of the Canadian state. It’s now in the hands of media to tell that narrative.

Elisha Corbett is mixed Irish and Cherokee PhD Candidate in the Department of Political Studies at Queen’s University and formerly a senior researcher with the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. The views expressed here are solely the author’s.

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