Annotation:
This open letter from Salil Shetty, the
Secretary-General of Amnesty
International, is addressed to members of
the Canadian House of Commons and the
Senate. The letter calls on the government
to implement a national public inquiry and
to improve their proposed "action plan" to
address the problem of missing and
murdered Indigenous women in Canada. The
letter insists that the government's
response in the ten years since Amnesty
Internationals major report, "Stolen
Sisters: Discrimination and Violence
against Indigenous Women in Canada", was
published (and affirmed by the government)
has been inadequate. The letter criticizes
government practices, including the
failure to implement consistent data
collection and reporting on the issue of
murdered and missing women (despite a UN
recommendation to that effect), ignoring
the recommendations of families, service
providers, human rights groups, and
previous public inquiries, and the refusal
to change the funding structure for groups
and organizations delivering vital
services to Indigenous women or to
introduce new spending for this purpose.