The International Indigenous Peoples Movement for Self-Determination and Liberation (IPMSDL) joins the Red Dress Campaign to honour and remember the thousands of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) on the National Day of Awareness for MMIWG across North America.
According to reports, homicide is the third-leading cause of death for Indigenous women and girls aged 10-24. Most of these crimes also involve cases of sexual assault committed against Indigenous women and girls on reservations and nearby towns with assailants often white and non-Native
American men.
Further research suggests that pipeline projects can fuel such acts of violence against Indigenous women and girl, citing cases of rape, child
sexual trafficking and sexual assault that are reportedly connected to oil development projects that course through indigenous territories. The connection between these cases of sexual violence and extractive
projects needs to be underscored.
Up until now, justice remains elusive for affected families and Indigenous communities as thousands of these cases are
under-reported and do not go further investigation. This epidemic of violence against Indigenous women and girls is a
continuation of the historical suffering inflicted on Indigenous communities by settler-colonizers. It is closely linked
with continuing issues of land dispossession and resource plunder which colonizers used to enrich themselves.
Indigenous Peoples also have limited access to basic social services and legal protection, highlighted by the Covid-19
pandemic; and such cases of abuse and marginalization are unrecorded or unreported which manifests the persisting
systemic racial discrimination directed against IP, deeply-rooted in the values of colonial and capitalist ideology.
For this, we at IPMSDL send our warmest solidarity to our Indigenous brothers and sisters in North America. We deplore
such acts of cruelty and injustice directed towards Indigenous Peoples. State and governments urgently need to act,
investigate, make justice accessible to indigenous communities, and ensure that the rights of Indigenous Peoples, of
women and girls who are bearers of future generations, are protected. The severity of these cases of abuse and rights
violation against Indigenous Peoples are nothing short of genocide.
The IPMSDL strongly supports the calls for justice and national inquiry initiated by Indigenous communities,
organizations and activists. Such issues of killings and violence are not far from the lived realities of Indigenous
Peoples in the Philippines, Indigenous communities in Africa and in the Amazon rainforests in Latin America, or of
ethnic nationalities in Burma, Myanmar. Our collective struggle for social justice and liberation will persevere despite
the attacks against our lives and rights.
Reference:
Beverly Longid , Global Coordinator