No More Silence

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Sudbury residents pay their respects to missing, murdered Indigenous women

BY LAUREL MYERS

Hundreds of indigenous women have gone missing or been murdered in the last 20 years, and as far as Marjorie Beaudry is concerned, it's time the authorities stopped turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to the situation.

A group of more than 30 concerned citizens joined Beaudry in Memorial Park Thursday afternoon to pay tribute and bring recognition to the “epidemic of violence against Indigenous women in Canada.”

“Today is a day to remember our stolen sisters,” Beaudry said. “Today is creating awareness for the missing women and also to forewarn other young native female women to be cautious and careful because it is a dangerous world out there for them at this time.”

Beaudry explained she was not representing any group or organization, she was there on her own to act as a voice for the missing and murdered women.

“I was urged by my elders to step forward and do something because nobody else is going to do anything,” she said. “I'm a voice for a women that are gone and dead. I'm here for them.”

According to Beaudry, indigenous women make up the fastest growing prison population, yet their deaths and disappearances are consistently not investigated and their killers unnamed. She also thinks aboriginal communities are over-policed.

“That energy should be directed elsewhere, to finding aboriginal women and solving their murders,” she said. “I come from a Native community where 78 percent of our children have children's aid society files. That's an assault tactic on our social structures and our community.”

Along with the group gathered in Memorial Park, similar events were scheduled to happen across the country in Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto and London.