Latest news with #MissingIndigenousWomen
CBC
25-05-2025
- General
- CBC
Cloak unveiled in P.E.I. helps families of missing, murdered Indigenous women and girls heal
A P.E.I.-based work of art that honours and remembers missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people was unveiled Saturday, but its organizers say it sadly may never be complete. The Silent Jingle project is a cloak adorned with traditional Mi'kmaw cones, each bearing the name of a missing or murdered person. The jingle of the cones gives voice to the voiceless, said project creator Lox MacMillan-Metatawabin. "We worked so many hours just to make sure it's exactly as we want it … [and] making sure we're always connecting with the families that are sending us names," she said. "This isn't about our team … it's about what the jingle dress represents and it's about bringing awareness and healing." MacMillan-Metatawabin, who is originally from White Bear First Nation in Saskatchewan, came up with the concept for the hooded cloak in the fall of 2024 while working at Mi'kmaq Printing and Design in Charlottetown. She gathered a team of more than a dozen people to get the project off the ground, and started putting out calls for names of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people on social media in March. As of Saturday's unveiling at the Indigenous PEI art gallery, over 100 names had been collected from across Canada and the U.S. 'An honour' The task of creating the cloak fell to Indigenous PEI's store manager, Yvette McKenna — though she doesn't describe it as work. "To take each cone and apply it respectfully on the cape, to be trusted with that, is an honour," McKenna said. "Each cone is special to somebody — to their families, to their friends." The issue of missing and murdered Indigenous people holds a personal meaning for MacMillan-Metatawabin. Her grandmother was a Sixties Scoop survivor and her father was a federal Indian day school survivor. While the cloak is meant to be a physical representation of how heavy the topic is, she said, the jingles are also a healing sound to the Indigenous community. "It was just a dream and finally today it's coming to reality," she said. "Where it really hits me every time is when I get an email saying 'thank you so much for allowing us to do this for one of [our] family members who went missing.'" The cloak is meant to be a living art piece. McKenna added a train that can accommodate more names. She said she felt the presence of each of the names on the jingle cones, and believes it helped her through the process. But the fact that there are more names to add also makes her emotional. "My heart hurts, because every time we put a person's name on, we know it's somebody that's not here," McKenna said.
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Stitt vetoes bill funding Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples investigations
OKLAHOMA CITY – On a day multiple tribal nations were marching at the Oklahoma State Capitol for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Awareness Day, Gov. Kevin Stitt vetoed a bill that would increase funding to a department inside OSBI that investigates those cases. House Bill 1137 was an amendment to Ida's Law, that Stitt signed into law in 2021. Ida's Law created the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples department but relied on federal funding that never materialized. HB1137 would have removed the federal funding requirement. In his veto message, Stitt did not point to budgetary concerns, rather he said the bill was an attempt to put one race above another. 'While I support efforts to solve missing persons and homicide cases, I cannot endorse legislation that singles out victims based solely on their race. House Bill 1137 requires the creation of a unit within the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation that focuses exclusively on missing and murdered Indigenous persons. But every missing person – regardless of race or background – deserves equal attention and urgency,' he wrote. 'Oklahoma already has both the Missing Persons Clearing House and the Cold Case Unit within OSBI, which are tasked with investigating disappearances and unsolved cases across all communities. Creating a separate office that prioritizes cases based on race undermines the principle of equal protection under the law and risks sending the message that some lives are more worthy of government attention than others. 'Justice must be blind to race. Our resources and investigative efforts should be deployed based on the needs of the case, not the identity of the victim.' In response, Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. pointed to the fact that Ida's Law already was on the books. 'Gov. Stitt's breathtaking ignorance of the issues facing tribes and existing teamwork to resolve those issues reached an absurd level today with his veto of HB 1137. The existing 'Ida's Law,' a bipartisan reflection of the sort of teamwork needed to address missing and murdered indigenous persons cases, is an effective law that enables tribal law enforcement and OSBI to work better together on MMIP cases,' he wrote in a press release. 'HB 1137, a bipartisan amendment to Ida's law, was a housekeeping measure designed to strip an unnecessary federal funding requirement. Gov. Stitt's veto message, issued on a day we raise awareness across the country on MMIP issues, exposes that he lacks the foggiest idea that Ida's Law is on the books, what it does on a low budget cost high impact basis, or what the simple amendment was designed to do.' Hoskin accused Stitt of purposely sowing discord by using the term 'race.' 'He also continues to conflate the political status of tribal citizens with 'race,' a tired old subject meant to divide and confuse people,' Hoskin wrote. 'Native Americans are disproportionally victims of violent crime and disproportionally so in cases that go unsolved. Serious leaders across the state and the nation understand that and are taking action.' HB 1137 passed through both chambers with almost unanimous support. Stitt has taken similar action in the past concerning tribal exclusivity on gambling issues and concerns over tribal tags and hunting/fishing licenses. 'We are sovereign nations and our treaties require the U.S. Government to live up to certain responsibilities,' Iowa Tribe Chairman Jake Keyes posted to social media. 'They continue to not only fail at this, but now they look to completely eliminate those responsibilities. More than ever it's important for our people and our tribal leaders to make our voices heard.' KOCO television station in Oklahoma City reported OSBI told the news station it would continue to fund the MMIP department.
