Missing and Indigenous women Social Sciences Essay

Missing and Indigenous Women during the Colonial Period
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Missing and Indigenous Women
The colonial policies and structures in Canada have resulted in violence towards Indigenous women. Colonialism is defined as a situation where the government is the culprit behind genocide via structural violence (Woolford & Benvenuto, 2018). It is a unique type of violence that is not easily understood based on the global definition of genocide as a crime (The National Inquiry, 2019). The approach used when making the legal requirements to determine individual accountability, rather than state accountability, is a reason why the legal and traditional perspective of genocide cannot be linked with colonial genocide (The National Inquiry, 2019). Aboriginal women have been symbolically annihilated from the Canadian social landscape, and their depictions are scanter and less enhanced in tone when compared to White women (Gilchrist, 2010). Aboriginal or Indigenous women and girls have borne the brunt of colonialism and discriminatory Canadian laws and policies, leading to more suffering as they are murdered and are victims of abuse without any legal protection.
Background
Aboriginal women comprise 2% of the Canadian population. A vast majority of them are victims of homicide, physical violence, and sexual abuse. Indigenous women and girls are often stereotyped as “a “squaw” who is dirty, lazy, degraded, and easily sexually exploited have profoundly shaped the experiences of Aboriginal women since colonial contact” (Gilchrist, 2010, p. 384). This has dehumanized these women and has rendered them more vulnerable to the gross sexual, psychological, and physical violence that they continuously face. Indigenous women aged between 25-44 have a higher chance of going missing or being murdered in comparison to other women in Canada (The National Inquiry, 2019). According to Ambler (2014), 60% of the murders and 70% of the disappearances occur in urban locations.
Furthermore, 87% of the murdered or missing women and girls are also parents to one or more children (Ambler, 2014). This is a troubling result, especially since studies have revealed that if the mother goes missing, then it is highly likely that the daughter will also suffer from the same fate in the future. In some family lines, several people have been murdered or gone missing. This leads to a negative impact, especially on children who are forced to live without their mothers (Ambler, 2014). Race and religion are often conflicted with culture, and women tend to suffer more. For instance, Muslim girls are often banned from wearing hijabs as a safety issue, because it might be a reason to harass them (Ramachandran, 2009). Even though Canada has many policies that seek to protect the populations, they inherently negatively affect women and girls, particularly the minorities.
The violence that affects Indigenous women is comparable to a race-based genocide that targets women and girls. The genocide is supported by colonial structures, which can be seen from actions like the Sixties Scoop, India act, breaches of Indigenous and human rights, residential school...