“We all need to know. We all need to act.”
Teresa Joyce says the statistics on violence against Indigenous women are “alarming.”
“We need to recognize the violence, harms and death that our women, girls and two-spirit people continue to experience on a daily basis,” she told a crowd gathered around the MMIWG monument outside the Legislative Assembly in Yellowknife on Tuesday.
Hundreds of people came together for the Red Dress Day event, hosted by YWCA NWT, the NWT Native Women’s Association, NWT & Nunavut Council of Friendship Centres, Yellowknife Women’s Society and Saht’ea Adze Beadwork.
Red Dress Day – or the National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and 2SLGBTQQIA+ People – takes place annually in Canada on May 5.
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“Today we come together to honour those whose lives were taken far too soon and to recognize the ongoing impacts of gender-based and colonial violence,” said Amanda Baton.
She said the day is also about looking forward with intention as everyone has a role in creating safer and more just communities.
Joyce, who is a gender and equity analyst at the NWT government, pointed to the calls to justice from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls to help guide that work.
Gerri Sharpe called for more resources to keep people in the North rather than sending them to unfamiliar places down south for treatment or support, where she said Indigenous women, girls and gender-diverse people can be vulnerable.
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“We need to take care of our people here in the North, the way the North does it, the way the North makes you feel like family, the way the North embraces you,” she said.
“We can educate our people here in the North. We can employ them, we can house them, but we have to work towards it.”
Many people in Yellowknife wore red as they fed a fire and listened to speeches, a prayer song by the Yellowknives Dene Drummers and a flute performance by William Greenland before marching through the city’s downtown.
This year marks the 16th anniversary of Red Dress Day. The movement originated from Métis artist Jaime Black-Morsette’s REDress Project, an art installation consisting of hundreds of red dresses suspended in public spaces to represent the absence of Indigenous women and girls who have gone missing or been murdered.
“Red Dress Day is not just symbolic, it’s personal,” said Michelle LeMouel at the Native Women’s Association of the NWT.
“Behind every red dress is a woman, a girl or a two-spirit person who is loved, who had dreams, who had a place in their family and community. And behind each one of those red dresses are families who are still grieving, still searching, still waiting for justice.”
LeMouel said everyone shares a responsibility not only to remember but to act.
The national, toll-free MMIWG crisis line is 1-844-413-6649. People in the NWT can also contact the 8-1-1 help line for mental health support. Both are available 24/7.
