The outrage over and public inquiry into “missing and murdered Indigenous women” (MMIW) is a major story from Canada that deserves wider attention. It demonstrates attitudes or even policies of male disposability (less concern for the safety and well-being of men than of women) from a government that vocally champions gender equality.

(Length: 1,200 words.)

1. As an issue during and after the election

Indigenous or Aboriginal people make up 4.9% of Canadians (2016), higher than the 3.3% in Australia (2016) and 2% in the United States (2013). This segment of the population faces disproportionate rates of many problems, including poverty, inadequate housing, incarceration, violence, and suicide.

The biggest story about Indigenous issues over the past few years in Canada has been the concern over missing and murdered Indigenous women. It has received an enormous amount of attention and outrage, e.g., “The numbers are startling. Between 1980 and 2012, there were almost 1,200 documented cases of missing and murdered aboriginal woman. So shocking. Shameful.” (Ottawa Sun). CBC (Canada’s English-language national broadcaster) alone has more than 100 articles with the MMIW tag, and it maintains a database of more than 250 of these women’s cases, which it once decided to tweet one-by-one over the course of 24 hours. The Liberal Party of Canada made it a prominent part of their 2015 election platform to launch a “national public inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls”, which it condemned as a “national tragedy”.

The disappearance and death of nearly 1,200 Indigenous women and girls is an ongoing national tragedy that must come to an end. Liberal Party of Canada, 2015 election platform

Based on this outrage, one might expect that Indigenous women get murdered or go missing more than Indigenous men, but actually it’s the opposite. Indigenous men are murdered approximately two to three times more often; numbers on missing persons cases are more sparse, but the ones that exist show an even larger disparity.

This important detail has received only limited attention (one notable exception is efforts by genocide researcher Adam Jones: CBC, National Post). When asked about including Indigenous men, the Liberals referenced the “tremendous call and consensus” to focus on women, saying their mandate is to “get to the bottom of the tragedy of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls in Canada”, adding that “[t]he issues around sexism are specific” and that all Indigenous people would benefit (Globe and Mail).

These justifications aren’t very strong or convincing. If they found excluding men to be distasteful, they wouldn’t do it. I think they’re aligned with the voters and activists who care more about Indigenous women, not simply pressured by them. And women do face unique concerns (e.g., more often being sex workers), but men obviously do too, otherwise men’s rates of being murdered and going missing wouldn’t be so much higher.

It would be one thing to focus on Indigenous men and women equally, ignoring the worse numbers for men. It’s another thing entirely for the outrage and inquiry to focus on women to the clear exclusion of men, despite Indigenous men being missing and murdered more often. That cements this as a particularly concerning case of male disposability.

2. The public inquiry and final report

Carolyn Bennett, Indigenous Affairs Minister, announcing the inquiry (CBC)





The Liberal Party won the election and launched the inquiry. Three and a half years (and $92 million) later, the final report has been released. It’s two parts and 1,080 pages long, so I read the 121-page executive summary. The document makes continual references to the “disproportionate” violence against, and in fact “targeting” of, Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA1 people; it also uses some of the strongest language possible, saying that the “violence experienced by Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people amounts to genocide” (p. 5), that “as many witnesses expressed, this country is at war, and Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people are under siege” (p. 3), and that “[Indigenous] women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people live with an almost constant threat to their physical, emotional, economic, social, and cultural security” (p. 32).

Conspicuously absent is any concrete comparison to Indigenous men and their rates of being murdered and going missing. The closest it really comes is a brief mention that Indigenous men and women have their security jeopardized in “distinct, though related ways” (p. 16). There’s also a statement that “no one knows an exact number of missing and murdered Indigenous women […] in Canada” and an assertion that “[t]housands of women’s deaths or disappearances have likely gone unrecorded over the decades” (p. 3). I’m not sure if this speculation is meant to address the numbers for Indigenous men and suggest that Indigenous women actually do get murdered and go missing at higher rates, but if that’s the intention they don’t make it explicit or elaborate on it.

One interesting observation about this document is that, while it essentially ignores those concerning numbers for Indigenous men, at the same time it laments “people ignor[ing] the issue of violence against Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people” (p. 67) or the police’s “historic denial of and unwillingness to investigate the disappearances or deaths of many Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA” (p. 37), which “sent the message that the police are indifferent to such violence”.

Another interesting observation is that some of the language used seems explicitly gender traditionalist, with a “women are special and deserving of special protection” attitude. The inquiry’s “guiding principle” is that “Our Women and Girls are Sacred” (p. 5), and it also says “[w]omen are the heart of their Nations and communities” (p. 13). These sentiments might derive from different traditions than Western/European gender roles, but regardless they should be distasteful from the perspective of gender equality.

Finally, the executive summary also includes a series of recommendations (which it actually refers to as “legal imperatives”), some of which are gender-neutral and some of which are not. In the latter category, it calls on the government to provide “safe and affordable transit and transportation services and infrastructure for Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people living in remote or rural communities” (p. 68), to “consider violence against Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people as an aggravating factor at sentencing” (p. 71), and “to educate men and boys about the unacceptability of violence against Inuit women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people” (p. 92).

Related to the inquiry, the government has also set up a $10 million commemoration fund “to support Indigenous families and communities to honour the lives and legacies of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls and LGBTQ2S individuals.”

3. Final thoughts

Canada’s Indigenous population still faces serious problems that we should care about, which should be evident even just from the graph of murder victimization above (although I think the report’s label of genocide is inaccurate and unhelpful). The problem is the way the issue has been so highly gendered. The extreme focus on Indigenous women over Indigenous men when it comes to murders and disappearances wouldn’t even make sense if their rates were equal; it makes even less sense given that Indigenous men get murdered and go missing at noticeably higher rates. This shows a clear case of prioritizing women’s safety over men’s. This would be understandable (or at least consistent) from traditionalists, but not from those who value gender equality.

4. Footnotes

[1] 2SLGBTQQIA is a rather unwieldy acronym that includes: two-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, and asexual.