Login / RegisterViolence against women targeted as 21st annual memorial march begins in Vancouver
As the 21st annual women’s memorial march is set to begin this afternoon, organizers say they are still searching for action to address the ongoing problem of violence against women in the Downtown Eastside community.
Jessica Wood, an organizer with the February 14th Annual Women’s Memorial March, noted the event is held annually on Valentine’s Day to honour the memory of women who have died or gone missing from the Downtown Eastside due to violence or abuse.
“Unfortunately, women continue to go missing or be murdered with little to no action from any level of government to address these tragedies, or the systemic nature of the gendered violence, poverty, racism or colonialism that we are subjected to,” claimed Wood.
Wood described violence against women in the Downtown Eastside community as having gone from covert to overt.
“We don’t have to go on a midnight ride to Coquitlam,” she said. “We’re thrown out of windows here, now.”
Organizers noted that in the fall of 2011, a woman fell to her death from the Regent Hotel on East Hastings Street. Her death came one year and one day after the fatal fall of another woman, Ashley Machiskinic.
Organizer Marlene George said members of the community are pushing for bars to be installed on the windows of all single-room occupancy hotels in the area, to prevent similar deaths.
During a press conference in advance of the memorial march today, organizers also panned the provincial missing women inquiry process. George said they hold “very little hope” that the inquiry will result in significant changes to the way investigations of missing and murdered women are conducted.
“We know that women are continuing to go missing all across this country, that things have to change at the national level,” said George. “But we need to be sure that we’re able to have our questions answered,and we’re on the outside of that inquiry.”
Wood said members of the community want to see more than “non-binding recommendations” result from the inquiry.
“The only reason that there’s any attention brought to this case is because of the activism happening on the Downtown Eastside,” claimed Wood. “The only reason there’s an inquiry is because we demanded one for so long.”
“The challenge now is they’ve taken what should be an avenue of justice and honour for these women to make systemic change, and what has happened now is a miscarriage of justice.”
Carol Martin, another organizer of the annual march, called the issue of missing and murdered women “a real crisis here in Canada”.
“Twenty-one years,” she said. “Is there anyone out there listening? Is there anyone paying attention to what is happening to our women?”
Today’s march in Vancouver coincides with similar memorial events taking place across the country. The march, beginning at 1 p.m. at Main and Hastings Streets, will include ceremonies at locations in the neighbourhood where women have died.
“Women continue to go missing, women continue to suffer horrendous abuses on a daily basis,” said organizer Mona Woodward. “Today we want to honour those women and walk with the families to have a ceremony wherever they were seen last.”
As it is, the DTES is an open market operated by predators, pimps and pushers. They are enabled by those who want to keep the area as it is -- a ghetto.
People like Pickton loved the drug market in the DTES because it made his task so easy. His prey were gathered in one constant, churning whirlpool of disorder and craziness. He loved Hastings and Main just like it is.
ANYONE who wants to honour Pickton's victims will do so by changing the DTES. They will take it out of the hands of the drug dealers, their enablers and apologists. They will return that neighbourhood to decent people looking for strength in their lives, and hope in their futures.
The status quo in the DTES is utterly indefensible. Today's march reminds us, in the best sense, why.
Violence is violence, your group and cause might get a lot more respect and support if you were inclusive of the entire community around you.
Erin Pizzey would be a great person to ask. I consider her a friend and the perfect person to learn all this from.
She opened the first battered women's shelter, and quickly discovered that "60% of the women were as or more violent than the men they were fleeing". She published her findings, calling the feminist movement "a lie", and had her family threatened and her dog poisoned.
Despite all the massive moral failures of the feminist movement, the whole "women" thing still draws funding and various groups manipulate tragedies like the Montreal Massacre to get said funding and continue to leech off the common taxpayer.
As for the current context? Funding, funding, funding. They didn't get theirs (why would they?) so the whole thing is a sham etc. etc. ad nauseum.
For the record.....the Annual Women's Memorial March...is a MEMORIAL. I am shocked that as a proud aboriginal...you are unaware of this...and that you labvel us "angry women" with no clear message.
The message is clear. It has been for 21 years. If you cannot see it perhaps you are attempting to see it with contempt in your heart?
As for the guy who asked how much of his "taxpayers money" goes to this....pretty simple...do a quick search.
Not a cent Sir. Not a cent. Are you a happy man now knowing that not as a man...you are not paying to end violence against women?
It is your attitude....that we aim to change. One step at a time. One year at a time. One inquiry at a time.
I would like the result to be less social violence, too, but am highly doubtful. To have fewer violent men, and fewer women inclined to take up with violent men, we need to raise more soulful and compassionate children. We need to grow our kids in safe environments, with lots of nurturing, and good modelling of behaviour. That's how you avoid making bullies and victims.
This seemingly obvious advice must not be that obvious, when you think about the families -- often huge families -- bred in absolute chaos and disarray. It is inevitable what would be the result, but we don't license parents in this country because that would be against human rights.