Prominent educator joins calls for action, mulls AFN leadership run
- EFN Staff | May 20, 2014
Amidst the calls for action on a recent RCMP report on missing and murdered Indigenous women, a prominent First Nations educator and journalist who has joined the call is potentially considering a run for Assembly of First Nations (AFN) national chief.
Wab Kinew, who hosted CBC's 8th Fire series in 2012 and recently successfully defended Joseph Boyden's The Orenda on Canada Reads, is the Director of Indigenous Inclusion at the University of Winnipeg.
It's expected he could make a decision as early as today.
The AFN has been without a national chief since Shawn Atleo stepped down earlier this month.
Whether he seeks the leadership of the embattled organization or not, he joins the calls of many to do something about the nearly 1,200 missing and murdered Indigenous women.
Last week the RCMP released its National Operational Overview on Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women.
It identified that Indigenous women are moer susceptible to violence than other women in Canada. The report says that 1,017 Aboriginal women were murdered from 1980 to 2012, and that another 164 of them had gone missing, and that Aboriginal women represented 16 per cent of all female victims of homicide in Canada during the period studied.
"A national shame and a national tragedy, Indigenous women are vastly over-represented in the numbers of missing and murdered women and girls," said Regional Chief for Alberta Cameron Alexis. "We are demanding immediate action based on these concrete facts and numbers so that not one more woman or girl is victimized and that no family member has to spend another day without answers. Ending violence against Indigenous women is an urgent priority for First Nations across the country and (the) report should compel all Canadians and the federal government to support immediate action."
The AFN would like to see a National Public Action Plan; immediate increased investments in front-line services and shelters on reserve and in rural areas; a coordinated focus on prevention among youth and across populations; and stable, sustainable and adequate resources for police services and support for First Nation recommendations regarding police services.