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ABORIGINAL RAFTERS FINISH HISTORIC JOURNEY
PV Vancouver Bureau
(This article is from the October 16-31/2000 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.)
EXHAUSTED BUT GALVANIZED by their unique experience, over 40 Aboriginal women arrived by raft in New Westminster and Vancouver on Sept. 25. Their two-week "Journey for Justice" down the Fraser River was one of the most exciting among the hundreds of World March of Women events this fall across Canada.
Sixteen women took part in the entire rafting trip, which began on Sept. 11 in Prince George, with dozens more taking in parts of the journey. The first Aboriginal president of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women (NAC), Terri Brown, joined the rafters at Lilooet in the Fraser Canyon.
Along the river, the rafters stopped in a number of Aboriginal communities, holding public meetings and private gatherings on the issues around violence against Aboriginal women. A statement from the Aboriginal Women's Action Network (AWAN) midway through the journey pointed out "two startling realizations" learned along the way.
One is that "the severity of atrocities committed against Aboriginal women" has changed little in recent decades; and second, that the Journey for Justice is a continuation of anti-violence work initiated many years ago by Aboriginal grandmothers and great-grandmothers.
A typical story of the journey came in Quesnel, where the rafters were greeted by Geneva Irwin, chief of the Red Bluff First Nation, and Doreen Patrick, chief of the Nazko First Nation. They spoke about the local case of an Aboriginal woman who was severely beaten, sexually assaulted, and thrown into the Fraser River. The Aboriginal community had to hold a rally to force the police to pay attention to the case, which remains unsolved.
Other women told the rafters of the consequences of taking a stand against violence within their own communities. A woman chief from the Sugar Cane Band has introduced a policy which provides support to women and children victims of violence, and which requires the offenders to leave the community. Her efforts have met resistance, reflecting the fact that in many cases, Aboriginal women have been forced to flee to urban or off-reserve areas to escape such situations.
These experiences drew attention to AWAN's concerns about the "restorative justice" programs that are being introduced across Canada, since these programs leave violent offenders in the same communities as their less-powerful female victims.
"Our primary objective is to ensure that Aboriginal women's voices become integral to policies and program development," according to AWAN's Fay Blaney, one of the key organizers of the journey.
The two stops on the journey's last day included a jubilant rally at New Westminster Quay, and a more subdued final gathering later that afternoon on Musqueam territory in south Vancouver. In an emotional ceremony at Musqueam, the sixteen women who made the entire journey were given special recognition, followed by the other women who had joined later.
Participants came from a wide range of First Nations across Canada, including the Natooten, Cree, Tsilhquot'in, Stl'atl'imx, Ilomalco, Anishnawbe, Metis, Sec Wepemc, Statlium, Gitskan, Yale First Nation, Haisla, Mohawk, Nuu Chah Nulth, Cheam and other Coast Salish Nations.
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