“The destruction of culture is inseparable from the destruction of people.” - Raphaël Lemkin
De Flore's Summary:
Across Canada on May 5th red dresses hang on trees, in forests and in public spaces. The project started by artist Jamie Black is meant to raise awareness for the women, girls and two-spirit people who have gone missing and been murdered in an ongoing epidemic of violence faced by the first nation people. Eerily the bright garments hang across the nation on brittle branches. Commemorating lost sisters, daughters, and mothers, are the flags of a people whose government has failed them. Since the arrival of western settlers, first nation women have been, and ongoingly are, disproportionally and violently affected by colonial dehumanisation. Stripped from their social statuses, they have been branded as sexual deviants and unfit mothers denied the raising of their children and subjected to domestic abuse patterns introduced by residential schools. While facing poverty many have turned to sex work where they are consistently and violently assaulted by white men whose stereotypes give license to their brutality. All this is only further aggravated by a negligent police force that “mobilises racist and sexist stereotypes of Indigenous women in order to justify their inaction” (NIMMIWG, 2019; p.630).
This is a crisis that is centuries in the making, a crisis that has been allowed to go on and claim countless lives because of an insufficient definition. In this essay, I argue that analysing Canada’s colonial genocide through a gendered lensed that focuses on the MMIWG crisis, reveals that the conventional understanding of genocide is insufficient as it excludes cultural destruction and thereby enforces Western concepts of livelihood. When thinking about genocide, it is isolated incidences of organised, lethal violence that come to mind, inflicted over short periods of time. Yet this understanding negates the roles of culture and the roles of gender. It denies the importance of non-killing acts predominantly perpetrated against women and girls. These include sexual assault, forced sterilisation and denial to raise their children and pass on cultural knowledge. Focusing on how women have been affected through non-organised-killing acts reveals the way in which legacies of colonialism persist in modern states and raise the need for a necessary recontextualization of the term ‘genocide’ that holds these nations accountable.
On the river Red in Winnipeg, Bernadette Smith and her team hang homemade dragging bars into the water. They drive along the river searching for human remains in hopes to find answers to the overwhelming number of indigenous women who have gone missing in the area. Their initiative ‘Drag the Red’ is one of the countless Grassroot projects in Canada that seek justice for missing and murdered indigenous women and girls (MMIWG) across the country (Cecco, 2019). Over centuries indigenous peoples across Canada have experienced endemic violence in the form of covert systemic cultural genocide at the hands of the colonial government and its institutions. While all indigenous people have suffered greatly, this cultural genocide has and continues to affect indigenous women particularly violently. Since 1980, 1,818 indigenous women and girls have officially been reported missing or murdered across Canada (RCMP, 2014). After years of previous governments averting the crisis, in 2016 Trudeau launched a national inquiry into the MMIWG crisis which ultimately accredited the source of this violence to the intersection of racism and patriarchy inflicted by legacies of colonialism (Exner-Pirot, 2018). Native women have been stripped of their social statuses, economically marginalised, dehumanised, sexualised and marked as unfit mothers. Many have been pushed to poverty, have minimal access to health care and often turn to sex work. Nevertheless, while being one of the most vulnerable groups in the county, police and jurisdictional institutions have historically neglected these women, failing to protect them from harm and seeking justice on their behalf (Gehl, 2020). However, not until recently have the crimes of Canada against the indigenous populations been recognised as genocide. This essay argues analysing Canada’s colonial genocide through a gendered lensed that focuses on the MMIWG crisis, reveals that the conventional understanding of genocide is insufficient as it excludes cultural destruction and thereby enforces masculine and Western concepts of livelihood. The first part of this essay will therefore focus on the definition of genocide while the second part will demonstrate the importance of recognising cultural genocide as a legitimate form of genocide by revealing how it has, and still impacts indigenous women across Canada.
Although the term has been in circulation amongst indigenous activists and authors for a long time, not until very recently has the systemic oppression of indigenous peoples been recognised as genocide by the Canadian government (Benvenuto, Woolford & Hinton, 2014). This is due to several reasons that provide an essential insight into Canada’s relationship with its colonial legacies as well as how genocide is understood in a contemporary context. One of these aspects lies at the nexus of the term. After witnessing the horrors of the holocaust, Polish lawyer Raphaël Lemkin coined the term ‘genocide’ to describe the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group” (UN, 2021). In 1948 the United Nations introduced the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, where Lemkin’s definition of genocide had been adjusted to exclude the destruction of culture. Lemkin had originally argued that “destruction of culture is inseparable from the destruction of people'' (Gehl, 2020). According to Canada’s national inquiry on MMIWG, the removal of this clause was advocated by several colonial states including Canada (NIMMIWG, 2019). The narrow definition has therefore allowed for the systematic erasure of indigenous culture by the Canadian government to remain unrecognised as a form of genocidal violence. As the national inquiry points out, the colonial genocide occurring in settler states is better compared to a ‘slow death’ encompassing both lethal and non-lethal acts and does not “fit easily in the international legal definition of the crime of genocide” (NIMMIWG, 2019; p.9). Instead, over centuries, native peoples have fallen victim to forced assimilation of the colonisers-imposed culture. As a result, much of the modern Canadian population and their governmental bodies still interoperate the term ‘genocide’ as alien. Moreover, the ignorance of the severity of Canada’s crimes has contributed to what journalist Tara Sutton calls Canada’s “Angel Complex” (Sutton, 2021). Through the idealisation of Canada as a liberal country and benevolent democracy both by Canadians themselves as well as the international community, there has been mass disassociation with the extent of the violent systemic oppression of indigenous peoples (Benvenuto et al., 2014).
Finally, a definition of genocide which excludes non-lethal methods, and the destruction of culture, demonstrates a masculine, Western contextualisation of livelihood. In the UN convention, genocide is formulated the as a subject matter of the public sphere, focusing on the overtly political, and imagines a population exclusively in the form of physical bodies. When concepts of genocide focus on mass murder within a specific time frame, it can only provide a limiting context. It denies the inclusion of non-killing acts which are predominantly perpetuated against women such as sexual assault, forced sterilisation and the denial to raise their children (Von Joeden‐Forgey, 2012). Furthermore, scholars such as Akila Radhakrishnan have argued that it is essential when looking at genocide to consider women’s role beyond a biologically reproductive context to understand how they are affected by violence through cultural and economic circumstances. She argues that while women are more likely to survive in the conventional definition of genocide, they carry a heavier burden of trauma. While a male experience focuses on the loss of life, a female experience centres to a greater extent on the loss of the community and cultural aspects (Radhakrishnan, 2020).
Thereby the legacies of colonialism have allowed for the dehumanisation of indigenous women and their culture and therefore are ultimately at the root of the MMIWG crisis and the cultural genocide of indigenous peoples. As the inquiry states “This crisis....is centuries in the making” (NIMMIWG, 2019; p. 319). Cultural genocide, remaining unrecognised, has therefore cemented itself as part of indigenous women’s experience in Canada. In further exploring the historical and contemporary context of MMIWG we are therefore able to access in-depth insight into how this form of genocidal violence has been perpetuated for so long in Canada and how Canadian colonialism actively implemented forms of gender-based cultural genocide to destroy indigenous peoples. Loo way back to claims of native land by European colonisers in the 15th century, like in many other parts of the world, indigenous peoples were labelled as “primitive savages” and “exotic curiosities” who ultimately needed to be westernised (Gehl, 2020). With the settler state came the enforcement of Christian values and with it, western patriarchal concepts of women’s roles in society (NIMMIWG, 2019). As a result, indigenous women and gender-diverse people lost their political, social, and religious status. Much of this can be related back to and attributed to the Indian Act, introduced in 1867. While the Act devastated all native peoples, indigenous women and all their female descendants suffered greatly at the hands of the legislation. First nation women were not permitted to participate in the ‘band system,’ introduced by the settler state to replace indigenous governing practices, pre-colonially were largely inclusive to women and 2SLGBTQQ peoples (Gehl, 2020). Furthermore, they were deprived of the right to own any marital property. Finally, women were denied their indigenous status upon marrying someone of non-native descent and later from 1951 had to register their status. Still, now the genocide is ongoing. Colonial narratives have remained present and have come to define the contemporary social hierarchies of Canada. Being drastically socially and economically disadvantaged, indigenous women often face “high rates of poverty and unemployment, lower educational attainment, poor health, lack of access to clean water, and overcrowded, substandard housing” (FAFIA, 2016).
While these acts stripped indigenous women of their social statuses, whereby forcing them into poverty, colonial influences further inflicted more direct forms of violence onto them MMIWG crisis is especially characterised by incidences of domestic violence and sexual violence that relate closely to colonially perpetuated economic disadvantages as well as institutional forms of neglect. This indicates how cultural genocide acts surreptitiously through corrupting cultural social structures and assimilating negative stereotypes into the mainstream mentality of the settler state. Between 1980 and 2012 indigenous women made up 16% of all female homicide victims even though they only account for 4% of the overall Canadian population (RCMP, 2014). While statistics on this are limited, around 44% of indigenous women reported fearing for their lives in domestic violence situations (Bingham et al, 2014). The prevalence of this abuse can furthermore be traced back to colonial influence. In an active effort to erase indigenous cultural practices passed down over generations, between 1874 and 1986, the Canadian government introduced compulsory learning at ‘Residential Schools’ effectively robbing native peoples of generations of their children (Pearce et al. 2008).
Literature on this topic has suggested that the high rates of verbal, physical and sexual abuse which children suffered at these schools were carried back into the indigenous community where learned patterns of abuse were repeated. In turn, this led to a surge in criminal activity, domestic violence, deteriorating mental health and substance abuse (Bingham et al, 2014).
Furthermore, early coloniser conceptualisations of indigenous women associated them with sexual deviance, which feeds into concepts of indigenous women being unfit mothers. Being portrayed as dehumanised and sexually available gave both deniability and license to sexually assault indigenous women (NWAC, 2020). Due to their economic status, indigenous women have turned to sex work for income and are currently one of the most over-represented groups in street-based sex work (Bingham et. al, 2014). While street-based sex workers are already made incredibly vulnerable for a range of reasons including a higher risk of sexual, physical, and verbal assault, risks of developing substance addictions, as well as the risk of sexually transmitted diseases and infections, indigenous women have proven to be even more vulnerable (Duff et. al, 2014). An example of this is that indigenous women are at much higher risk of contracting sexually transmitted infections and diseased. A study in 2014 found that in comparison to non-indigenous women, indigenous women were much more likely to be subject to generational sex work and experience greater violence as well as being at much higher risk of testing HIV positive (Bingham et. al, 2014). As the authors of this study have suggested, this disparity can be traced back to colonially perpetuated economic inequity. Indigenous women may therefore be more likely to engage in higher-risk sexual encounters if this means a larger payment and be less likely to seek assistance from health care and criminal justice institutions. This too is often due to fear of being arrested for sex work as well as a general distrust in governmental institutions, which will be elaborated on later (NWAC, 2018). Furthermore, especially young women working in street-based sex work are extremely vulnerable to sex trafficking. While this is often associated with the crossing of borders, a 2016 review by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) showed that out of 330 cases 94% happened within Canadian borders (RMCP, 2016). This suggests that sex trafficking of indigenous women is related to colonial perpetuations of indigenous women as dehumanising well as active exploitation of their economic and social vulnerabilities. This type of deeper analysis is therefore integral to demonstrate how intersectional vulnerabilities are directly linked to the covert nature of cultural genocide (NWAC, 2018).
Nonetheless, even though all this has demonstrated that indigenous women make up the most vulnerable population in Canada, they are also highly neglected and even report abuse by the government’s institutions and its criminal justice system (NIMMIWG, 2019; p.447). Due to the repeated injustice experienced by indigenous peoples at the hands of governmental institutions for centuries, for many women the concept of security and justice provided to them by the state is alien. A major factor of this has time and time again been seen in the conduct of the RMCP towards indigenous women. Historically police have demonstrated a general lack of understanding about the MMIWG crisis and have furthermore notoriously perpetuated both racialised and sexualised stigmas towards indigenous women (Gehl, 2019). While in a 2013 statement the RCMP claimed that “there is little difference in solve rates between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal victims,” this has been highly contested. As the inquiry states “The police mobilise racist and sexist stereotypes of Indigenous women in order to justify their inaction” (NIMMIWG, 2019; p.630). Indigenous women and girls will often be subject to victim blaming by police who label them as runaways or refuse to follow up if they assume connections to substance abuse and/or sex work (Macklin, 2020). Additionally, the national inquiry has stated that “current laws, including those regarding sexual exploitation and human trafficking, are not effective in increasing safety overall for Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people because those laws do not acknowledge power imbalances and social stigmas” (NIMMIWG, 2019; p.669). Furthermore, although a large proportion of perpetrators are strangers, the RCMP insists that the majority are family members or spouses, which has historically led to the neglect of investigations into serial killers (NIMMIWG, 2019; p.648). Consequently, there is a great amount of distrust towards the police by many indigenous women as well as a general resistance to report abuse. Especially in incidences of mothers with children in domestic violence, many choose to remain living with their abuser in fear of police interaction resulting in child protective services getting involved (Macklin, 2020). Finally, both the National Inquiry as well as Human Rights Watch concluded through testimonies that women often felt fearful of being blamed for the abuse or being arrested themselves on accounts of self-protection (NIMMIWG, 2019; Human Rights Watch, 2013). As Murdoch and McGuire (2021) have argued, this fear is legitimised by the fact that indigenous women are overrepresented in the prison system due to the judicial system being extremely influenced by racist and sexist prejudices. Many of these women, the study suggests, have been incarcerated on charges of self-defence and substance abuse (Murdoch & McGuire, 2021).
In response to this, members of the indigenous community have taken to activist initiatives. Neglected by police, many will take charge of investigating homicides and searching for missing relatives and members of the community themselves, forming neighbourhood watch groups and providing aid in the form of food donations (Cecco, 2019). Although activism has been noted to create healing environments through establishing platforms for agency, spaces of healing, and the opportunity for necessary communal grieving, it is also important to recognise this labour as a deeply re-traumatising experience and a form of replicating gender disparities. The majority of activists are women who have lost loved ones to the MMIWG crisis, therefore the work they do is not only a constant reminder of the loss of their loved ones but also a reminder of their own marginalisation and generations of trauma (Haglili, 2020). Therefore, activism must simultaneously be recognised as a site for change, but it further must be recognised that these initiatives are a necessity for the indigenous people whose government has failed them. Over the past year and a half, many activist groups have expressed their disappointment over the lack of action seen by the government after the publishing of the National Inquiry. In 2020 the Native Women’s Association of Canada created the ‘Report Card on Government Follow-up to Reclaiming Power and Place,’ which assessed the progress of the right to culture, health, security, and justice. Governmental action fails in all categories. Especially disappointing has been the lack of commitment to establishing a national task force and a database of MMIWG cases. While in 2019 the Canadian government published an action plan, many clauses such as those relating to further funding existing domestic violence services and increasing policing in First Nation and Inuit communities, fail to address issues relating to indigenous peoples and especially indigenous women not trusting these services in the first place (NWAC, 2020).
In conclusion, the cultural genocide that Canada has inflicted on Native peoples is made apparent through the in-depth analysis of the MMIWG crisis. It has furthermore portrayed how the century-long perpetuation of this violence has been masked by a denial of seeing cultural genocide as a legitimate form of genocidal violence. The root of this can be traced back to masculinised and Westernised versions of what constitutes livelihood and death (Gehl, 2020; Benvenuto, Woolford & Hinton, 2014). Subsequently, through the analysis of the historical and contemporary violence experienced by indigenous women which constitute the MMIWG crisis, we have seen how cultural genocide is ongoing through both economic and systemic forms of oppression which are rooted in colonial histories, portraying how cultural genocide acts insidiously (Pearce et al. 2008, Bingham et al, 2014). While patterns of violence introduced by colonialist institutions such as residential schools have created disparities around domestic violence, the criminal justice systems further have historically contributed to the neglect of indigenous women’s lives by perpetuating harmful stereotypes and mishandling investigations (NIMMIGW, 2019). Ultimately this has led to the necessity of indigenous women to take investigative matters into their own hands, and while these forms of activism are empowering, the constant confrontation with the genocide of one’s own people perpetuates re-traumatisation. Further, the number of activist groups reflects how neglected the criminal justice system and the community feels (Haglili, 2020). Therefore, it is essential that the definitions for the term ‘genocide’ are re-contextualised, and that modern states are held accountable for their colonial past which continues to violently define entire population’s experiences in a contemporary context.
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