LibGuides: Indigenous Studies: Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit people

Introduction

This guide provides OC Library and web resources related to Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and Two-Spirit People as well as search strategies on this and related topics.

This is a topic that may be triggering. Please be sure to take time to care for yourself if you are researching or accessing information on this topic.

The Government of Canada has implemented a national, independent, toll-free support line which is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. If you or someone you know requires immediate support, please call 1-844-413-6649 to speak to a counsellor. The service is available in English, French, Cree, Anishnaabemowin (Ojibway) and Inuktitut.

Okanagan College students may want to connect with Aboriginal Services or Counselling Services. As well, the Here2Talk service provides confidential counselling and community referral services, available 24/7 via app, phone and web.

REDress Project

IMPORTANT: the dominant structure for organizing information is from a western perspective, for this reason you may need to use outdated (sometimes offensive) terminology to find resources related to Indigenous peoples; please contact us if you'd like assistance navigating this.

Combine keywords related to the concept of Indigenous identity with keywords related to your area of interest.

For example:

Indigenous	Aboriginal	"First Nations"
Inuit	Métis	"Indians of North America"
Indian	Native	Name of Nation or Community (e.g. Secwépemc)

AND

"Missing women"	"Highway of Tears"	MMIWG2S
"Stolen sisters"	Rematriate	"MMIWG Inquiry"
"Violence against women"	"Domestic violence"	"Gendered violence"

Search Tips:

Use quotation marks to search for a phrase (e.g. "missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls").
Use an asterisk to search for words with the same stem (e.g. violen* retrieves violent, violence).
Terminology changes over time. You many need to search for alternative spellings of a word, for example: Sto:lo, Stó:lô, Staulo, Stahlo or you may need to search for alternate words, for example: Kwakiutl/Kwakwaka'wakw or Nootka/Nuu-chah-nulth

Subject headings are a tool designed to help researchers find similar materials. These are only some examples of the many subject headings that Okanagan College Library uses. Spend a few minutes exploring them when you find a book in the catalogue that supports your research.

Search by Subject Terms

Missing and murdered Indigenous women
Missing Indigenous women
Indigenous women -- crimes against
Native women -- crimes against -- Canada
Native women -- Violence against -- Canada
Missing persons -- Canada -- Investigations
National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (Canada)

Action Plans

2021 Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA+ People National Action Plan: Ending Violence Against Indigenous Women, Girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA+ People
Drawing upon the experience and expertise of family members and survivors, the National Action Plan is meant to be an overarching plan which identifies the necessary activities that must be taken by governments (federal, provincial/territorial, municipal, Indigenous), organizations, and communities across the country to address violence against Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people.
National Inuit Action Plan on Missing and Murdered Inuit Women, Girls and 2SLGBTQQIA+ People
This is a chapter within the 2021 National Plan. It instructs governments, Inuit Land Claim Organizations and other represented bodies on the National Inuit Working Group on Missing and Murdered Inuit Women, Girls and 2SLGBTQQIA+ People on how to move forward with implementing the 46 Inuit-specific Calls for Justice in the final report from the National Inquiry into MMIWG.

Reports

Reclaiming Power and Place: The Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls
Red Women Rising: Indigenous Women Survivors in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside
Colonial state practices target women for removal from Indigenous lands, tear children from their families, enforce impoverishment, and manufacture the conditions for dehumanization. This is an extraordinary report with Indigenous women survivors at the center; rather than as a secondary reference.

Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women: A National Operational Overview
[RCMP, 2014]
Outcomes and Priorities for Action to Prevent and Address Violence Against Indigenous Women and Girls
National Roundtable on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, 2016.
Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Gender, Indigenous Rights, and Energy Development in Northeast British Columbia
[Amnesty International, 2016]
Stolen Sisters: A Human Rights Response to Discrimination and Violence Against Indigenous Women in Canada
[Amnesty International, 2004]
Those Who Take Us Away: Abusive Policing and Failures in Protection of Indigenous Women and Girls in Northern British Columbia
[Human Rights Watch, 2013]
Voices of our Sisters in Spirit: A report to families and communities
[NWAC, 2009]

Featured News

A six-part series by Brandi Morin on Al Jazeera which "tells the stories of some of the Indigenous women and girls who have gone missing or been murdered along an infamous stretch of highway in British Columbia, Canada."

B.C. failed to consider links between ‘man camps,’ violence against Indigenous women, Wet’suwet’en argue
[The Narwhal, 2020]

Featured Books

Forever Loved: Exposing the Hidden Crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in Canada
This book includes a variety of voices from the academic realms to the grassroots and front-lines to speak on the grave violation of the basic human rights of Aboriginal women and girls. The contributing authors illustrate the resilience, strength, courage, and spirit of Indigenous women and girls as they struggle to survive in a society shaped by racism and sexism, patriarchy and misogyny.
Highway of Tears: a true story of racism, indifference and the pursuit of justice for missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls
For years, Indigenous women & girls have gone missing or been found murdered along what is now known as the Highway of Tears. The author investigates the devastating effect these tragedies have had on the families of the victims and their communities, and how systemic racism and indifference have created a climate where Indigenous women and girls are over-policed, yet under-protected.
If I Go Missing
Combining graphic fiction and non-fiction, this young adult graphic novel serves as a window into one of the unique dangers of being an Indigenous teen in Canada today.
Indigenous Women and Violence
This book offers an intimate view of how settler colonialism and other structural forms of power and inequality created accumulated violences in the lives of Indigenous women. This volume uncovers how these Indigenous women resist violence in Mexico, Central America, and the United States, centering on the topics of femicide, immigration, human rights violations, the criminal justice system, and Indigenous justice.
Keetsahnak / Our Missing and Murdered Indigenous Sisters
In this book, the tension between personal, political, and public action is brought home starkly as the contributors look at the roots of violence and how it diminishes life for all. Together, they create a model for anti-violence work from an Indigenous perspective.
Obstruction of Justice: the search for truth on Canada's Highway of Tears
The author, a former RCMP officer, embarked on a life altering journey to unlock the secrets of the cases of missing and murdered women along the Highway of Tears. He discovered as much about the crimes as he did the reasons they've gone unsolved.
Red River Girl
A gripping account of the unsolved death of an Indigenous teenager, and the detective determined to find her killer, set against the backdrop of a troubled city. Jolly asks questions about how Indigenous women, sex workers, community leaders, and activists are fighting back to protect themselves and change perceptions.
Violence Against Indigenous Women: Literature, Activism, Resistance
Centring the voices of contemporary Indigenous women writers, this book argues for the important role that literature and storytelling can play in response to gendered colonial violence.

Featured Articles

Gilchrist, K. (2010). “Newsworthy” Victims?: Exploring Differences in Canadian Local Press Coverage of Missing/Murdered Aboriginal and White Women. Feminist Media Studies, 10(4), 373–390.
This paper argues that the simultaneous devaluation of Aboriginal womanhood and idealization of middle‐class White womanhood contributes to broader systemic inequalities which re/produce racism, sexism, classism, and colonialism. This paper raises concerns about the broader implications of the relative invisibility of missing/murdered Aboriginal women in the press, and their symbolic annihilation from the Canadian social landscape.
Luoma, C. (2021). Closing the Cultural Rights Gap in Transitional Justice: Developments from Canada’s National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, 39(1), 30–52.
This article advances a case to understand the MMIWG Inquiry as a transitional justice mechanism and draws upon its Final Report to analyse how truth commissions can engage with cultural rights violations in more meaningful ways.
Palmater, P. (2016). Shining Light on the Dark Places: Addressing Police Racism and Sexualized Violence against Indigenous Women and Girls in the National Inquiry. Canadian Journal of Women and the Law, 28(2), 253.
This article seeks to highlight the lesser-known problem of police-involved racialized and sexualized abuse and violence against Indigenous women and girls as a root cause of the large numbers of murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls in Canada.
Razack, S. H. (2016). Gendering Disposability. Canadian Journal of Women & the Law, 28(2), 285–307.
Focusing on the murder of Cindy Gladue and understanding it as a part of a history of the sexual brutalization and attempted annihilation of Indigenous women, the author considers utilizing a framework of disposability - Indigenous woman's expendibility in settler colonialism - rather than the court's framework of consent/contract. The excessive violence that is meted out to Indigenous women as evidence of colonial power imprinted on their bodies is emphasized.
Schnitzler, L. (2019). Bringing Her to the Front Page: An Analysis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women’s Representation in Canadian Media. Ab-Original, 3(1), 143–147.
Despite the fact that over one hundred Indigenous women are missing in British Columbia, Indigenous women are rarely the subject of the front page of media outlets. This article discusses the discourses surrounding Indigenous women, specifically those living in Downtown Eastside in Vancouver, BC.
Tate, M. (2015). Re-presenting invisibility: ghostly aesthetics in Rebecca Belmore’s Vigil and The Named and the Unnamed. Visual Studies, 30(1), 20–31.
Between 1980 and 2002, more than 65 women were disappeared from the Downtown East Side area of Vancouver, BC. The majority of whom were First Nations and thus were historically marginalised from the imaginary of Canadian citizenship. This article analyses documentation of a street performance by Anishinaabekwe artist, Rebecca Belmore, who was haunted by the disappearance of these women and by their invisibility as bodies that mattered.

Featured Podcasts

Missing & Murdered
CBC News Investigative podcast.
Season 1: Who Killed Alberta Williams?
Porcupine Podcast
Season 2, Episode 7: How Housing Could Save the Lives of MMIWG
The Red Nation Podcast
#MMIWG, land, bodies, and consent with Cheyenne Antonio, Marissa Naranjo and Melanie Yazzie.
She is Your Neighbour
Episode 6: Violence Against Indigenous Women and Girls
Stolen: The Search for Jermain
Inside the investigation searching for Jermain Charlo, the show examines what it means to be an Indigenous woman in America.
Taken
Eagle Vision team has worked with families, law enforcement, advocates, academics, elders and knowledge keepers across the country to create a platform that helps shed light on the stories of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, and hopefully will bring new clues to help solve the cases.
Indigenae
Episode 4: So Much Work Remains: Forging Paths toward MMIWG2S Data Sovereignty with Dr. Blythe George

Featured Videos

A TEDx talk by Tamara Bernard that encourages hope, love, empowerment and igniting a new way of learning together as a nation. Tamara lays bare the world of violence impacting indigenous women.

"In Collaboration with Canada Without Poverty (CWP), and with support from CASWE’s Social Policy and Advocacy Committee, the Centre for Studies on Poverty and Social Citizenship (CSPSC) hosts a panel discussion focusing on the systemic discrimination and inequalities at the root of the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls in Canada."

Finding Dawn
[NFB Streaming Video, 1 hr 13 min] Acclaimed Métis filmmaker Christine Welsh brings us a compelling documentary that puts a human face on a national tragedy – the epidemic of missing or murdered Indigenous women in Canada.
Key Moment Videos from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls
Protect our Future Daughters
[NFB Streaming Video, 5 min] Short docu-drama that educates viewers about the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) of Canada and the Red Dress Project, narrated by Maryanne Junta, a young activist woman.
This River
[NFB Streaming Video, 19 min] This short documentary offers an Indigenous perspective on the devastating experience of searching for a loved one who has disappeared.

Other Resources

National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls
Mission: We will find the truth by gathering many stories from many people. These truths will weave together to show us what violence really looks like for Indigenous women and girls in Canada.
Native Women's Association of Canada (NWAC)

NWAC: MMIWG Fact Sheet

NWAC: MMIWG & Violence Prevention
NWAC: Safe Passage
Developed by the Native Women's Association of Canada to help individuals learn more about missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people in Canada. Includes an interactive map of cases across Canada.
Assembly of First Nations: MMIWG Policy Sector
Moose Hide Campaign
A grassroots campaign to end violence towards women and children.
Walking with Our Sisters
A commemorative art installation to honour the lives of missing and murdered Indigenous Women of Canada and the United States. Includes lists of organizations and networks working for awareness and change.
National Indigenous Women's Resource Centre
Providing national leadership to end violence against American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian women by lifting up the collective voices of grassroots advocates and offering culturally grounded resources, technical assistance and training, and policy development to strengthen tribal sovereignty.
Sovereign Bodies Institute: MMIWG2 Database
Builds on Indigenous traditions of data gathering and knowledge transfer to create, disseminate, and put into action research on gender and sexual violence against Indigenous people.

Related Guides

Sixties Scoop and Millennium Scoop