Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, & Two-Spirit (MMIWG2S)

The National Inquiry’s Final Report reveals that persistent and deliberate human and Indigenous rights violations and abuses are the root cause behind Canada’s staggering rates of violence against Indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA people. The two volume report calls for transformative legal and social changes to resolve the crisis that has devastated Indigenous communities across the country. The Final Report is comprised of the truths of more than 2,380 family members, survivors of violence, experts and Knowledge Keepers shared over two years of cross-country public hearings and evidence gathering. It delivers 231 individual Calls for Justice directed at governments, institutions, social service providers, industries and all Canadians.

The Interim Report outlines what the National Inquiry has accomplished to date, acknowledges challenges, makes recommendations, and serves as a blueprint for moving the National Inquiry forward.

The annual report outlining NWAC's progress in implementing the commitments made in our MMIWG2S Action Plan, 2022-2023

The Federal Pathway is the Government of Canada's contribution to the National Action Plan. It outlines the Government of Canada's commitments to end violence against Indigenous women and girls and Two-Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Intersex and Asexual (2SLGBTQQIA+) people. The Government of Canada will work with Indigenous partners to develop an Implementation Plan, which will contain the details of this Federal Pathway.

As we press forward to address the alarmingly high number of missing and murdered First Nations, Métis, and Inuit women in Canada, the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC) is using its voice to put an end to this genocide–the crimes against Indigenous women that continue t o t ake lives and destroy many others from the loss, trauma, and grief.

A Special Report was published after an Investigation in accordance with Part 4 and Part 5 of The Advocate for Children and Youth Act.
Tina Fontaine might always be known for the tragic way in which she died, but it is her life that is an important story worth knowing. It was on August 17, 2014, when most people would learn her name, but Tina’s story began long before that day. It began even before Tina was born on New Year’s Day in 1999. To know Tina’s story, to really understand how she came to symbolize the churning anger of a nation enraged, each of us can look as far back as the arrival of European settlers and as close to home as the depth of our own involvement or indifference in the lives and experiences of Indigenous youth.

This research project is the first of its kind undertaken by Manitoba’s Sexual Exploitation Unit. It contributes to the growing body of work on evidence-based best practices to prevent sexual exploitation and sex trafficking in Canada. Guided by mixed-method research that pivots towards the evidence, it analyzes new data to further understand sexual exploitation and sex trafficking in Manitoba. It also provides vision and direction on how to improve services for vulnerable Manitobans in these situations.

This study is a preliminary estimate of the cost of doing nothing to prevent many Indigenous women and girls from going missing and being murdered. It gives an insight into the emotional journeys of the families left behind. It also assesses the current financial cost of dealing with this tragedy based on calculations drawn from the literature and estimates of the number of MMIWG in Manitoba.

The RCMP is committed to the prevention of violence against women. As frontline police officers, we know that Indigenous women are at greater risk of being victimized; because of this, the RCMP Commissioner called for more research on this issue. The resulting 2014 Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women: A National Operational Overview, and the subsequent 2015 Update to the National Operational Overview, provided the most comprehensive and accurate statistics available to date on the extent of the problem of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG), incorporating data from police forces Canada-wide.

Little is known about family or gang involvement in the trafficking of Aboriginal women and girls in Canada. Interviews were conducted between October 2013 and February 2014 with front-line support agencies, service organizations, subject matter experts and police agencies. The research questions focused on how Aboriginal women and girls are being trafficked for the purposes of sexual exploitation, with a focus on how gangs or kinship relationships contribute to the trafficking situation.

Amnesty International’s 2004 Stolen Sisters report was one of the first reports to systematically document the pattern of violence experienced by Indigenous women and girls in Canada. Due to continued government inaction to end the violence, the findings and recommendations in the 2004 report, and its 2009 update, are as relevant today as they were at the time of publishing.

The murders of Helen Betty Osborne and Felicia Solomon are two of the cases highlighted in a report by Amnesty International – Stolen Sisters: A Human Rights Response to discrimination and violence against Indigenous women in Canada. These stories of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls take place in three Western provinces of Canada over a period of three decades. The perpetrators, were known, include both intimate acquaintances and strangers. In some cases, the crimes remain unsolved. In every instance, Canadian authorities could and should have done more to ensure the safety of these women and girls or to address the social and economic factors that had helped put them in harm’s way.