Photos: Families, friends, and supporters gather to remember women of the Downtown Eastside

Earlier today, hundreds gathered at Main and Hastings to march in remembrance of women who have lost their lives while living in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

Elders and drummers led the way during the 27th annual march singing the Women's Warrior song, while families, friends, and supporters followed.

Some carried signs bearing the names of their lost mothers, sisters, aunties, daughters, cousins, and grandmothers. 

Ahead of the march, a press conference was held inside the Carnegie Centre, where organizers Rebecca Brass, Carol Martin, Evelyn Youngchief, and Myrna Cranmer articulated both sadness and frustration.

"I'm really angry, because this list is getting longer, and longer, and longer," said Cranmer. "I knew almost every woman on this list. My heart hurts, because we don't know what to do. All we can do is be here for our women," she said.

Cranmer added that, despite marching annually since 1992, indigenous women continue to be ignored to death, and while many in the media have good intentions to share the story come February 14, the issue often becomes an afterthought.

Martin, who has worked in the area for the better part of 30 years, said it is time everyone take responsibility for the way they view and portray indigenous women.

"We have to find our voices. When you see someone being labeled in newspapers on the news, we have to start holding each other accountable, and say, 'hey, that is someone's mother, that is someone's granddaughter, and she has a connection to somewhere, and you're making her look like she's just not worth it'," Martin said.

Brass called on lawmakers to reform the system that continues to perpetuate violence against indigenous women.

"It's time that the colonial practices and policies that contribute to the high levels of violence against indigenous women and girls are reexamined to better reflect the day and age that we are living in today," she said. 

"The racist policies and misogynistic practices were made to destroy our culture, to exclude us socially and economically, and have contributed to an outrageous number of indigenous women living in poverty, or in homelessness, or faced with addiction."

She also called for a collective change in attitude towards indigenous women, and greater accountability on the part of systems, institutions, and individual perpetrators.

Pre-contact, women were upheld as leaders of the community, and Brass said that, moving forward, their voices must be heard.

"It's time to bring this teaching back. It's time to listen to our women, and let us lead the way again, so our children and future generations have a safe world to live in."