Violence Against Indigenous Women and Girls in Canada: A Summary of Amnesty International’s Concerns and Call to Action

This report puts out a call to action for a national response to the human rights crisis created by the disproportionate scale and severity of violence faced by Indigenous women and girls in Canada. The author argues that a comprehensive and coordinated national response is needed to address current gaps in policies, programs and services to address this problem. The report lays out several elements that would need to be present for a successful National Action Plan. These include standardized police protocols to handle missing persons cases, as well as the collection of gender-disaggregated data on Indigenous persons in Canada that tracks violence rates against Indigenous women and girls. The report also calls for a funded and independent national public inquiry that will expose the nature of this violence and ensure government and police accountability.