Violence Against Indigenous Women in Canada

In 2004 Amnesty International first wrote a report about a group of Indigenous women in Canada who lives are in danger. They are being singled out for acts of violence, by non-Indigenous men and usually abducted brutally raped and killed. In fact the statistic given by the Canadian government was that Indigenous women were five times as likely to die as a result of violent crime than non-Indigenous women in the population. This has become a serious issue for the girls living in the community to live in fear of becoming a victim, but even worse the Canadian police force has also refused to keep records of how many Indigenous women have been attacked and also rarely prosecute any of the perpetrators. Amnesty believes that the targeting of Indigenous women is a result of the systematic discrimination and racism that they have to face on a daily basis, which is keeping them from getting jobs, good educations, and the proper protection they so desperately need. This type of victimization of the female body that is occurring in Canada today, relates to the type of victimization that Zarkov writes about in her book. The Muslim women Zarkov writes about, are brutally sexually assaulted simply because of their beliefs and ethnicity and as a way for groups with opposing views to express their dominance over them, which is what I believe may be happening to the Indigenous women in Canada. In my opinion the worst type of violence that can be inflicted upon a person is sexual because it violates a persons body in the most personal intimate way possible, which is why I think that what Amnesty and Zarkov have done by addressing the issue of sexual violence against women is so important and admirable, so that people will finally recognize it and fight to see change.