By: Urbi Khan
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) released a report in May this year detailing initiatives, which they are planning on taking to approach murdered and missing Indigenous women cases.
The RCMP report includes three broad types of initiatives. The first one details policing, investigative outlines and the justice system reform regarding cases involving missing and murdered Indigenous women. The second initiative relates to outreach and prevention activities, which means that the RCMP has to participate in workshops and presentations on crime prevention. The third initiative outlines specific community based projects, such as building shelters specifically for Indigenous women and children seeking refuge from violence at home and their communities.
Infographic by: Sara Jabakhanji
Other new policies have been made since December of 2016 that have become mandatory such as that the RCMP are required to work with families “to develop a schedule for providing updates about the investigation,” according to the CBC.
Families have expressed dissatisfaction with the way officials have investigated their loved ones’ cases.
(Josh Cameron/RSJ)
Karly Cywink, a first year RTA school of media student at Ryerson University, spoke about her personal experience in relation to this issue. Her aunt, Sonya Cywink was found dead 23 years ago, on Aug. 26, 1994.
Cywink’s case is still an ongoing investigation. Her niece, Karly said that she might have been murdered for a reason.
“[My aunt] was found dead, on an ancient Indian burial ground. So, whoever put her there, put her there for a reason. To this day they are looking for any clues related to what happened to her,” said Karly.
Cywink was 31 years old when her body was found at the Southwold Earthworks, a historical site that was a former First Nation settlement located on Iona Road in the Township of Southwold, Elgin County, according to the CBC.
According to Karly, her family says that her aunt’s homicide case is a forgotten one.
“I don’t know anything that happened [when Cywink was found dead] but I remember that my father told me that not much has happened because it happened on a reservation. So, the police did not really care about it. And to this day, I think it is out of the police’s’ hands. It is technically an ongoing investigation but I don’t think they are doing anything about it. Obviously my family is still upset to this day,” said Karly.
According to a 2015 update to the 2014 national overview report by the RCMP, the overall “solve rate for female homicides in RCMP jurisdictions for 2013 and 2014 was 8 per cent. Homicides of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal women had similar solve rates of 81 per cent and 83 per cent.”
A 9.3 percent reduction have been reported by the RCMP in regards to unsolved Aboriginal female homicides and “suspicious” missing persons’ cases from the 2014 overview across all police jurisdictions.
The RCMP strategy regarding missing and murdered Indigenous women were only developed in 2014 with the national overview, which was published that year.
Homicide data from 2013 and 2014 shows that in most cases, female victims, “regardless of ethnicity, are most frequently killed by men within their own homes and communities”.
As of April 2015, for all police jurisdictions in Canada, there were 174 missing Aboriginal female cases, according to the 2015 RCMP national overview report. This represents 10 per cent of the 1,750 missing females reported on the Canadian Police Information Centre (CPIC).
Infographic by: Amanda Pope
RCMP have reported 1,186 homicides and unresolved missing women investigations between 1980 and 2012.
One year later, the RCMP released a second report revealing 32 more Indigenous women were killed in 2013 and 2014 within RCMP jurisdictions, according to their 2014 national overview.
While the RCMP is working towards initiatives in solving decades long cases regarding missing and murdered Indigenous women; families wait for the answers to their loved ones’ lives.
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