Family of Murder Victim Loretta Saunders Vows to Keep Fighting for Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women

(Are you listening, Stephen Harper?)

On February 13, 2014, Loretta Saunders, a pregnant 26-year old Inuk woman, went missing. Sadly, on February 26, her body was found in a wooded median along a New Brunswick highway. Police have not revealed how Loretta was killed, only that it’s a part of the evidence in the first-degree murder charges against Victoria Henneberry and Blake Leggette.

In a painful twist to her brutal ending, in late January, Loretta handed in her 28-page thesis proposal to supervisor, Darryl Leroux, at St. Mary’s University in Nova Scotia. Her plan was to begin writing her PhD thesis on three aboriginal murdered women (Nora Bernard, Anna Mae Pictou Aquash and Tanya Brooks) in which she would tackle the issue of violence against Indigenous women in Canada.

Days after her discovery, Loretta’s family vowed that they would not let her legacy fade from Canada’s memory. “Loretta made a grand point. She hasn’t died in vain,” said her sister Delilah Saunders.

“She captured the hearts of the country,” added cousin Lisa White.

After a two week search and despite such a horrific end, her family was grateful that Loretta’s body was found. “Not very often are aboriginal people returned and she’s being returned home,” said aunt Barb Coffey. “She’s going home.”

Her family intends to continue to fight for missing and murdered aboriginal women, for justice and to honour Loretta’s academic research in Criminology.

(Are you listening, Stephen Harper?)

In a gesture akin to pouring pounds of salt into a gaping wound, Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued the following statement on International Women’s Day (hours before releasing a watered-down version of a report on the violence against aboriginal women in Canada):

“Today we celebrate the many achievements of women in Canada and around the world and reaffirm our commitment to gender equality. Our government is taking action to support women’s economic security and prosperity. We are also investing significantly in projects to end violence against women and girls.”

Harper’s words are proof of an indifferent (if not callous) government that has no qualms about issuing false propaganda to placate the masses. Liar, liar pants on fire. A once poignant report now turned into an impotent piece of sludge.

Completely gone is the “call to action” for a public inquiry into the disappearance and violent deaths of more than 600 aboriginal women, painstakingly documented by the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC). Despite a glaring pattern of racist-misogynist violence, Harper continues to scorn these calls for a national inquiry.

The data collected by NWAC and the federal government show that aboriginal women are five to seven times more likely to become victims of violence than non-aboriginal women. Aboriginal women make up three per cent of Canada’s population, but 10 per cent of female murder victims are aboriginal. The statistics, already atrocious and alarming, are likely to be even higher due to deficiencies in reporting.

(Are you listening, yet, Stephen Harper?)

If not for the work of organizations like NWAC or prominent and emerging activist artists like Rebecca Belmore and Jaime Brown, hundreds of aboriginal women would continue to be faceless and inconsequential victims of violence that in many cases go unrecorded or under investigated. The list of “the named and the unnamed” seems painfully endless…  a red spiralling wound, a traumatic and fatal piercing with little hope for recovery or restoration.

“In [her performance and video installation The Named and the Unnamed] Vigil, Belmore appeared at the corner of Gore and Cordova streets in East Vancouver, her bare arms covered with the names of missing women…  Picking up bunches of roses arranged on the ground, she shouts out the names written on her arms—Sarah! Helen! Andrea! Paula!—then drags the thorny stemmed flowers through her mouth, spitting out the petals… Belmore dons a bright red dress, nails its broad skirts to a telephone pole, and lunges and thrashes until she tears herself free.” – Excerpt from Trauma Mamma by Daniel Baird in The Walrus, 2005

In her essay, Cracked Heirlooms: memory on exhibition, poet Ingrid De Kok argues that “the ability of artists to perform elegiac functions is especially valuable, primarily because the work can act as a catalyst through its process of remembrance, mourning and truth telling.” She views such elegiac questioning as a way of “setting free the energy locked in grief or rage” and organizing its “movement in the form of voicing a protest.”

In Belmore’s performances, her body becomes a code or marker for the way in which the scars of history are exposed and made visible in the flesh. The phrase “to fall” evokes many meanings, but the most poignant, to “drop wounded or dead, especially in battle.” A wound is a serious thing. Breaching the skin, a wound breaks the body and spirit, forever scarring both, causing those affected to never forget its violent act.

(Are you listening, Stephen Harper?)

At a press conference held within hours of the discovery of Loretta’s body, Cheryl Maloney, President of the Nova Scotia Women’s Association, stated:

“I’m never going to let Stephen Harper or Canadians forget about Loretta and all the other missing or murdered aboriginal people. 

She wasn’t what society expected for a missing aboriginal girl. Canadian society, and especially our prime minister, has been able to ignore the reality of the statistics that are against aboriginal girls.

This is not what everyone expects, but she is at risk. Every aboriginal girl in this country is vulnerable. For Canada to be ignoring it for so long, it’s disheartening. How many more families does this have to happen to before they take seriously the problem?”

Loretta’s murder is holding a blazing red spotlight on the number of Indigenous women whose lives end so brutally. Jaime Black, a Métis artist based in Winnipeg, is the creator of The REDress Project, an installation that gathers and displays red dresses to mark the absence and violent deaths of the hundreds of missing and murdered aboriginal women. In March 2014, she installed 100 of the 600 dresses she’s collected on the University of Winnipeg campus in partnership with the Institute for Women and Gender Studies (IWGS) during International Women’s Week.

Her mass of red dresses are vivid and poignant sites of mourning and acts of resistance that symbolizes the endemic racism and misogynist violence against aboriginal women in Canada:

“As a Métis woman I’m aware of the dangers and constant threats of violence that women are often faced with in an urban setting. It is important that people learn about this issue.”

(Are you listening, Stephen Harper?)

Hanging provocatively in galleries and urban spaces, Black’s red dresses are cadaverous vessels that confront us with the disturbing reality of bloodied and sexualized aboriginal bodies. A mass (genocide) of female redness in stark contrast to a white, male-dominated society that continues to ravage, dehumanize and victimize aboriginal woman.

Black literally “redresses” this fact, forcing us to face the reality and our own passivity and racism. By showing us the truth in all its painful candor, the artist asks us to embrace the crimson ghosts of 600 missing or murdered women.

There is no solace in these images. Like Belmore, Black’s installation exposes the injustice and the anguish of these women. Her work asks us to remember and to fight for all the daughters, sisters, cousins, mothers and grandmothers whose inner fires were so brutally snuffed out. It’s a call for justice. A call for us to stand up for gender and race equality, compassion and political action.

The red dresses remind us that Loretta has joined a staggering mass of “named and unnamed” women whose families are still grieving and wondering if they will ever see change or accountability. Both Black and Belmore’s works are acts of protest that weep loudly into the face of horrific indifference and injustice. I can only hope that Loretta’s tragic death has lit a fire under us all. As the content of Loretta’s own thesis proposal reveals, the call to end the violence against aboriginal women has gone on far too long. Are you listening, now, Stephen Harper?

[Jaime Black is accepting donations of RED Dresses for her project. Please help her reach 600! Visit her website for more information]

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