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OTTAWA (Reuters) – A special commission tasked with investigating murdered and missing indigenous women in Canada released its final 1,200-page report on Monday.
It said the deaths in Canada of more than a thousand aboriginal women and girls in recent decades was a national genocide, blaming the violence on long-standing discrimination against indigenous people and the country’s failure to protect them.
Below is a snapshot of some of the 231 recommendations, or what the report says are “calls for justice,” included in the report:
POLICE AND VICTIM SERVICES
– Equal funding for indigenous police services compared with all other non-indigenous police services
– Standardization of protocols for all police services that ensure all cases of missing and murdered indigenous women, girls and two-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex and asexual (2SLGBTQQIA) people are thoroughly investigated
– Government funding to increase the recruitment of indigenous peoples to all police services
– Ensure mandatory indigenous languages capacity within police services
– Ensure there are police services in all Inuit communities
– All police services establish an independent, special investigation unit to look into failures to investigate, police misconduct, and all forms of discriminatory practices and mistreatment of indigenous peoples within their police services
– End the practice of limited-duration posts in all police services, and replace it with a policy that builds and sustains a relationship with the local community and cultures
– More funding for indigenous and community-led victim services
LEGISLATIVE AND JUDICIAL
– All provincial and territorial governments enact missing persons legislation
– Recruit and retain more indigenous justices of the peace and increase indigenous representation in all Canadian courts, including the Supreme Court of Canada
– Amend the Criminal Code to consider violence against indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQUIA people as an aggravating factor at sentencing and include cases where there “is a pattern of intimate partner violence and abuse” as murder in the first degree
– Mandatory intensive and periodic training of all who participate in the criminal justice system, such as Crown attorneys, defense lawyers and court staff, in the area of indigenous cultures and histories
HEALTH AND EDUCATION
– All health service providers should develop and implement awareness and education programs for indigenous youth on the issue of grooming for exploitation and sexual exploitation
– Update education curriculums in partnership with indigenous peoples to include the history of murdered and missing indigenous women and the root causes of the violence
Reporting by Kelsey Johnson; Editing by Paul Simao
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