Girls

Search for missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls hampered by police apathy: Researchers

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 14:58:49 +0000

Search for missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls hampered by police apathy: Researchers

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 06/05/2023 - 10:58

Cutline

Participants walk in the Women's Memorial March in Vancouver to remember missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls (photo by Liang Sen/Xinhua via Getty Images)

Kate Martin

Girls

Graduate Students

Indigenous

Research & Innovation

Sociology

Truth and Reconciliation

U of T Mississauga

Women

Subheadline

'The problem of Indigenous women being overpoliced and underprotected is all across Canada'

Content warning: the following contains disturbing subject matter.

In Canada, research shows Indigenous women are 400 per cent more likely than other Canadians to go missing. The problem is so pervasive that the Canadian government does not know how many Indigenous women are missing or have been murdered. Estimates suggest that around 4,000 Indigenous women and girls and 600 Indigenous men and boys have gone missing or been murdered between 1956 and 2016.

To identify the barriers faced when searching for missing and murdered friends and family, Jerry Flores, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Toronto Mississauga, and graduate student Andrea Román Alfaro set out to gather testimony from Indigenous women and Two-Spirit individuals.

Andrea Román Alfaro (supplied image)

Their findings are discussed in an article titled “Building the Settler Colonial Order: Police (In)Actions in Response to Violence Against Indigenous Women in ‘Canada,'” which was published in the journal Gender & Society.

While several studies have sought to identify why Indigenous Peoples continue to disappear, few have looked at the role of police in violence against Indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQ+ people, says Román Alfaro, a sixth-year PhD candidate in sociology.

“The problem of Indigenous women being overpoliced and underprotected is all across Canada,” she says, citing a 2004 Amnesty International report.

For their article, Flores – Román Alfaro’s PhD supervisor and a volunteer with several of Toronto’s Indigenous-led organizations – conducted close to 50 face-to-face interviews.

When COVID-19 restrictions blocked their ability to do more in-person work, Román Alfaro suggested including the 219 personal statements from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls to expand their sample of respondents.

“The testimony of the women at the inquiry allowed us to see that in their stories, the narratives are all very similar,” Román Alfaro says. “Then we went looking for what is happening in society that lets this happen.”

Román Alfaro helped code the respondents’ stories to identify common themes. The team soon identified police indifference as a major thread, with 209 of 219 testimonies referring to negative interactions with police in the management of their missing person cases.

The article highlights two major styles of behaviour that the woman said police employed: justifying violence and dismissing violence.

The research found that Canadian police repeatedly use negative labels such as “runaways” along with slurs when responding to reported cases of violence against Indigenous women and girls.

“There’s nothing we can do,” or “it’s inevitable,” people report hearing from police when trying to report an Indigenous woman missing, the article says.

A participant in the 2022 annual Red Dress Day march in Edmonton holds up a sign (photo by Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

The testimonies include complaints that loved ones were provided little or no information on their cases and that police gave up quickly in the search for bodies or culprits. In some cases, police suggested a missing person’s report should be done no earlier than two or three months after a disappearance.

Respondents also noted indifferent attitudes, stereotyping and the blaming of poverty, mental health issues and lifestyle choices. Respondents said these responses instilled in them doubt, shame and fear of the police.

Born in Peru, Román Alfaro wasn’t aware of the Indigenous experience in Canada when she was growing up, but says the themes are familiar.

“I had done a lot of work around violence and victims of violence, marginalized groups, state violence and low-income women in Peru – so I came in with that knowledge,” she says. “I didn’t grow up knowing about Indigenous life on Turtle Island, but this situation, of a culture of women being disappeared and murdered, was not foreign to me.”

Flores is now writing a book using the data, which he hopes to publish by the end of the year. Román Alfaro, whose own field of research includes how people respond to and resist violence, says she also wants to delve further into the findings.

“I would like to do more work on how a community heals from this violence,” she says. “Red Dress Day, Orange T-shirt Day – these are ways to keep people remembering this issue and those people who exist in these communities, and how they can reconcile with such a tragedy.”

Román Alfaro says she would like to talk to police about their perceptions of interactions with Indigenous Peoples and find out whether efforts are being made to improve relations.

“The families and friends (of the missing and murdered women) want information, they want to know something is being done, to be involved in the process or to know someone is looking for their loved ones,” Román Alfaro says. “That’s one very big gap in all this: how to deal with the families. They want to know what happened – they need to know what happened.”

Flores and Román Alfaro believe their article’s findings have important implications for future research and policy.

While the Calls for Justice of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls include demands for decolonial education and training for officers, Román Alfaro says their research has identified a need to look for alternatives to the police for state-provided victim support.

“There is still a lot of work to do from the Truth and Reconciliation recommendations,” Román Alfaro says.

“It’s a long way from saying what the problem is, to doing something about it.”

International Women’s Day: U of T leads the conversation on girls and women in STEM and sports

ullahnor — Wed, 08 Mar 2017 16:15:30 +0000

International Women’s Day: U of T leads the conversation on girls and women in STEM and sports

ullahnor Wed, 03/08/2017 - 11:15

Cutline

One of the many ways U of T promotes women in STEM is through Girls Leadership in Engineering Experience, an annual event hosted in May by the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering to welcome female high school students to the engineering community

Topic

Global Lens

International Women's Day

U of T marked International Women's Day across its three campuses with advocacy and new initiatives promoting girls and women.

The annual rally kicks off at U of T's King's College Circle on Saturday – and, on March 8, faculties and scholars used the day to talk about how to encourage more girls and women to take up and then stick with careers in STEM and sports.

A big part of inspiring girls and women to pursue science, technology, engineering and math, is teaching future teachers how to teach math, says Mary Reid, assistant professor, teaching stream at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.

She says mentoring future teachers to inspire female students will help boost the number of women in STEM.

“Studies show that from a young age, girls are more anxious about math and have lower confidence in their math abilities compared to boys,” she said. “It’s critical that teachers help diminish that anxiety in young female students and give them confidence at an early age.”

Another crucial step towards STEM gender equity is to engage girls at a young age, she says.

“New parents, child-care workers and kindergarten teachers can spark the interest of STEM-related concepts for young girls.”

Black Girls Magazine: U of T PhD student inspired to make a difference

ullahnor — Tue, 21 Feb 2017 19:13:49 +0000

Black Girls Magazine: U of T PhD student inspired to make a difference

ullahnor Tue, 02/21/2017 - 14:13

Cutline

U of T PhD student Annette Bazira-Okafor (left) with some of the young contributors of "Black Girls Magazine"

Lindsey Craig

Author legacy

Lindsey Craig

Topic

When Annette Bazira-Okafor, a PhD student at U of T's Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, saw the magazines and apps her daughter and her friends were using, she knew something was missing – representation of the girls themselves.

“They just are not there. The way they do their hair, their skin tone – it’s not represented,” she said.

“It sends a message that they’re not part of the norm. It’s not right,” she continued. “It’s important for them to have a voice.”

So, Bazira-Okafor decided to give them one.

One Friday evening, she got the girls together and asked them to share their experiences in written stories, images, cartoons – whichever way they wanted to express themselves.

The result was far beyond what Bazira-Okafor had ever dreamed.

“I just thought, ‘Why would we keep this [for ourselves] and not have other people look at it?’” she said.

And so, with that, Black Girls Magazine was born.

Using her own resources, Bazira-Okafor had the first issue printed.

It wasn’t long before word began to spread among friends and families. Soon after, schools and libraries too, wanted the magazine on their shelves.

“People loved it. They really embraced it. And I think that was really important for the girls to see – that their work was important, that they were important. It validated them,” Bazira-Okafor said.

Content in the magazine ranges from running for school council president to “weird questions people ask me about my hair,” to family trips abroad and a comic strip.

The girls say the chance to talk about their real-life experiences helps fight stereotypes of how black girls are often portrayed.

“At my school, there’s a lot of black people. But then the white people [at the school] always assume that black people live in the hood, and they’re all very poor,” said Morgan, 13. “So I feel like if we show that we’re something greater...then I feel that that will help us a lot in breaking the stereotype.”

In one issue, Taylor, 12, was inspired to write about her impressions of the Disney movie Queen of Katwe, a film about a Ugandan girl who becomes a top chess competitor.

“I love Black Girls Magazine because it represents us, and the things that we like to do,” Taylor said.

“We need to show other black girls in the world that they don’t have to keep quiet, and they don’t have to conform to what the world thinks you should be,” said Mbabazi, 13, who creates caricatures of girls in the magazine.

As for what inspired her to create the magazine, Bazira-Okafor said her studies at OISE have been empowering.

“It’s made me think about the world differently, and it gave me confidence to be able to boldly say what I want to say,” she said.

Black Girls Magazine is published twice a year with all publishing and printing costs covered by Bazira-Okafor. Those looking to help sponsor Black Girls Magazine can contact Bazira-Okafor at blackgirlsmagazine.ca. Girls who wish to contribute features to Black Girls Magazine can email: blackgirlsmagazine@gmail.com.

Girls

Search for missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls hampered by police apathy: Researchers

International Women’s Day: U of T leads the conversation on girls and women in STEM and sports

Read more about Reid's reflection on STEM education

Read more about U of T Engineering's efforts

Read more of Kidd's blog post

Black Girls Magazine: U of T PhD student inspired to make a difference