Indigenous Women

Imagine a world, where one cannot even travel two kilometers away from home without fearing racist confrontation. Although this may sound like a dystopia, this is reality for the Indigenous Women of Canada. Sadly, these women are forced live in constant fear, knowing that any goodbye could potentially be their last. Indigenous women have been the subject of various kidnappings and murders for a very long time now, and the government has done next to nothing to improve the situation. People are even going so far as to say that there is not much more that could be done to help these poor women. In the following paragraphs, I will give a personal insight on this issue by describing the symbols within my vamp, naming a few concepts that are of …show more content…
Within the vamp, there are many symbols and messages that adequately depict the issue at hand. First of all, the roadway holds significant meaning, and adds an element of darkness to the vamp. Although, the road looks like that of a traditional highway—it consists of pavement with lane markings—it is painted red, in order to represent the blood of all the missing and murdered Aboriginal women. Furthermore, the grass surrounding the highway also has a meaning. It, too, is covered in the representative blood of all the women who perished on Highway 16. I think the grass adds meaning to the image, as it creates a more vivid understanding of the various damages that have been inflicted on so many Aboriginal women. Thirdly, there are 17 bloodstained teardrops on each vamp to commemorate all the women that were killed on the Highway of Tears. This symbol is especially important, because it is a quantitative representation of the message portrayed in the vamp. Last but not least, there is a stop sign on the highway. I believe that this symbol is very unique, for, although these signs are common in residential areas, it is very rare to see them on highways. With this being said, this stop sign does not serve the same purpose, and is put in place, in order to tell the murderers to stop, and think before taking the valuable life of an individual. To put it …show more content…
In my opinion, every life is important, whether it belongs to an individual of Aboriginal descent or not. However, this being the case, Aboriginal women—who represent a significant minority in Canada—are somehow still the target of more hatred and abuse than women from any other racial background. Now how is that possible? Not to mention, there are 225 unsolved cases with regards to these women. Does this mean that the RCMP has used as much of their time and resources as possible—with regards to this case—or have they simply tried, and given up? Regardless, the mediocre efforts made by the RCMP exhibit the lack of time and energy that has been spent with respect to the women who have disappeared—from their homes, or from existence itself. Under those circumstances, you would think that someone would apologize—at the very least—for what has happened. Yet, instead we hear people like John Cummins in the news; who blames these poor women for being beaten to death, saying they "put themselves at risk." I think that is a sad effort to conceal all the hardships that have been inflicted on the Indigenous people for hundreds of years. In other words, even if these women were in the sex trade, and were putting themselves at risk; who put them there? Because surely no one can believe that they chose that life-style. Personally, I believe that the lack