Loretta Saunders’ death has sparked calls for action on missing aboriginal women
When 26-year-old Saint Mary’s University student Loretta Saunders went missing on Feb. 13, the circumstances were all too coincidental. When her body was found nearly two weeks after, the suspicions and fears were confirmed.
Saunders, who is Inuk, and was also three months pregnant, had been writing her thesis on missing and murdered aboriginal women at the time of her disappearance. Her death has prompted many Canadians and aboriginal groups to demand a further inquiry into the larger issue of missing and murdered aboriginal women.
Saunders’ body was found on Feb. 25 near the Trans-Canada Highway west of Salisbury, New Brunswick. A week earlier, authorities in Harrow, Ontario located her blue Toyota Celica. Sanders’s roommates, Victoria Henneberry and Blake Legette, were apprehended on charges of the possession of a stolen vehicle. They have since been charged with the first-degree murder of Ms. Saunders and are in custody in Windsor.
Saunders’ boyfriend, Yalcin Surkultay, last saw Saunders on Feb. 13 as she was heading to the apartment she shared with Henneberry and Legette. Surkultay says that Saunders was hoping to collect the long-overdue rent money the couple owed her. Authorities believe this is where she was killed.
Delilah Saunders-Terriak, Saunders’ sister, has called for vigils to be held in her sister’s name. Cheryl Maloney, the president of the Nova Scotia Native Women’s Association of Canada, has organized a vigil that will be held on Parliament Hill on Wednesday, Mar. 5. It will honour Saunders and other missing and murdered Canadian indigenous women, and Maloney hopes it will prompt the federal government to consider a public inquiry into the murder rates of aboriginal women.
Darryl Leroux, Saunders’ supervisor for her Honours’ thesis, published an essay on the Halifax Media Coop website explaining his shock and sadness over the news of Saunders’ death.
“She presented all of the vulnerabilities to which indigenous women are prone,” he wrote, “through no fault of her own.”
Saint Mary’s University will hold a public Memorial Service on Mar. 7. According to Global News, the university’s Aboriginal Society held a traditional smudging ceremony – where smoke is burned to cleanse the mind, body and spirit – then raised Mi’kmaq Grand Council flag at half-mast.
Since 1990, an estimated eight hundred aboriginal women have been killed or gone missing. According to the Native Women’s Association of Canada, Saunders is one of eight indigenous women murdered since September. The Association adds that 10 per cent of all female homicide victims in Canada are aboriginal women and girls, despite them representing only three per cent of the Canada’s female population.
Many hope that Saunders’ story will be a significant turning point in the long effort to recognize the vulnerability of indigenous women in Canada.
“This is about patterns,” NDP Halifax MP Megan Leslie told The Globe and Mail. “We need to look at what the systemic issues are here.”
Addendum: The following responses were received shortly after the Ontarion‘s deadline for print publication. Véronique Roussel is the Aboriginal Liaison at the Aboriginal Resource Centre at the University of Guelph
The Ontarion: Is the pattern of violence against Aboriginal women an issue that can be addressed effectively by the Canadian government?
Roussel: Missing aboriginal women have too often been swept under the rug; their families left without answers. We need to understand what is happening. Who are these women? What are their circumstances? What has happened to them? Who are their aggressors? Something is missing in the system when aboriginal women make up such a strikingly disproportionate number of female victims. We need a government that will take responsibility where warranted and will make changes to flawed colonial policies and attitudes.
The Ontarion: How can Canadian society better protect these women and how can these awful occurrences be prevented?
Roussel: We must educate, we must recognize, and we must heal. We must strive for equality. Deeper than that, we must consider the deeper scars colonialism has had on our men, our women, and on the greater social climate in Canada. We must reconcile and seriously address the issues facing indigenous peoples today. As a nation, Canadians must become more educated. Many people live sheltered from the struggles of their indigenous brothers and sisters and it begins there. It begins by learning.