Latest news with #missingIndigenousWomen
CTV News
6 days ago
- General
- CTV News
‘Difficult and challenging': Consultations on Red Dress Alert pilot project underway
A report into a proposed alert for missing Indigenous women has been released, showing the benefits and challenges an alert would have.
CBC
02-06-2025
- General
- CBC
Daughter of First Nations woman missing 20 years remembers her mother's 'warm hands'
Stephanie Cameron-Johnson was 11 and in foster care when she learned her mother had gone missing on Vancouver Island, after a friend showed her a photo in a newspaper. What followed would be two decades of challenging racial stereotypes surrounding her mom, undoing shame, and repairing identity disconnection caused by the child welfare system, Cameron-Johnson says. "The narrative that's been spoken about missing, murdered Indigenous women and two-spirit folks… I really feel like it's my responsibility to change that," said Cameron-Johnson. Her mother Belinda Cameron, a Sixties Scoop survivor from Peguis First Nation in Manitoba, was 42 when she was last seen at a Shoppers Drug Mart in Esquimalt, B.C., on Esquimalt Rd near Head St., on May 11, 2005. She suffered from a mental illness and was prescribed medication, to be picked up at Shoppers daily, but failed to attend the pharmacy in the days following. She wasn't reported missing until June 4. Police consider disappearance suspicious Det. Colin Hanninen of the Victoria Police Department said Cameron was a person of routine and a fixture in Esquimalt in 2005. She was considered a vulnerable person by police due to addiction and mental health issues, said Hanninen, and her disappearance is considered suspicious. Cameron was initially reported missing by a man who she'd been involved with, but the man told Victoria Police he had not seen her in over a month. Police used a polygraph test to question if the man had harmed Cameron; he denied doing so and passed the test. "At the time there was a robust investigation involving this person, and a polygraph was part of that," said Hanninen. Investigators conducted over 100 interviews and an extensive forensic examination of Cameron's Cairn Road apartment near Old Esquimalt Road, said Hanninen, as well as canine and helicopter searches. "Unfortunately, you know, it had been potentially three to four weeks from the time we can confirm she was last seen to her being reported, which puts you at a disadvantage," said Hanninen. "In 2005, it would have been a lot more challenging than it would be today to find clues of where she could have gone or, you know, if she was with anybody." A 2010 report from the Native Women's Association of Canada said British Columbia had the highest number of cases of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in the country, according to its database. B.C. also had the highest percentage of suspicious death cases: nine per cent of the cases in its database from B.C. fell under the category of suspicious deaths, compared to four per cent nationally, the report said. 'Ripple effect' Cameron-Johnson said police and media reports her mother used drugs or may be doing sex work don't fit with the way she remembers her mother. "It's a stereotype… that's not all who she was," said Cameron-Johnson. "I remember speaking to some social workers, and they said that she was just always so sweet and kind but that could also kind of get taken advantage of." Cameron-Johnson and her younger sister Zoe were living in foster care at the time of their mother's disappearance. Social workers told the sisters their mother voluntarily put them into care, said Cameron-Johnson, but she remembers being abruptly removed by ministry workers from her Grade 1 classroom in 1999. 'When she went missing, my foster mom told me that it was essentially, like, her fault," Cameron-Johnson said. "They really did make her look like she was in the wrong." She and her sister being put in care was the beginning of her mother's downward spiral, Cameron-Johnson said. "I feel like that really kind of did have that ripple effect on my mom's self worth, and going missing," said Cameron-Johnson. "I don't think she was surrounded with care and love and support. I feel that someone did, like, harm her in a terrible way, and I think that people knew her... know things." Kirsten Barnes, director of clinical legal services at the B.C. First Nations Justice Council, said women like Cameron faced less access to legal recourse and understanding around systemic barriers in the '90s and early 2000s than today, with improvements still needed. "Indigenous women, a lot of them would have felt incredibly alone. They would have felt incredible power imbalance… she probably felt a great deal of pressure," said Barnes. Federal and provincial sanctioned policies such as residential schools and the Sixties Scoop were "created deliberately to destroy the family unit," said Barnes, and have led to the ongoing overrepresentation of Indigenous children in care, known as the Millennial Scoop. As of January 2024, 68 per cent of the 4,835 children and youth in care in B.C. were Indigenous, according to the province. "In this case with Belinda, had she had those [family] connections her whole entire life, things may have been different, right? She may have had all of the support that she would have needed," Barnes said. "No parent wants to ever voluntarily give their children up… and that may not have happened if she had not been taken as a child herself. It wasn't really voluntary if you think about the circumstances that she was probably dealing with at the time." Cameron-Johnson said she and her sister are still looking for answers on what happened to their mother, and can feel their mom guiding them. Belinda Cameron was a mother, a homemaker, a baker, enjoyed beading group nights at the Victoria Friendship Centre, and was a skilled thrifter with incredible style, said Cameron-Johnson. "I just remember her warm hands. She just had a really lovely, warm presence," Cameron-Johnson said. "She was there. She was present. I can't really ask more for that, as a parent, to have in your life." Belinda Cameron is described as a five feet, eight inches tall with a medium to large build, long, dark brown hair at the time of her disappearance, and dark brown eyes. She is also known as Belinda Ann Engen.
CBC
28-05-2025
- Health
- CBC
A serial killer targeted vulnerable women in Winnipeg. What's changed at shelters since then?
Social Sharing Three years after convicted serial killer Jeremy Skibicki targeted four vulnerable First Nations women, it's unclear what impact the case has had on safety protocols at some of Winnipeg's biggest shelters. Skibicki was found guilty last July of four counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of Morgan Harris, Marcedes Myran, Rebecca Contois and an unknown victim who has since been identified as Ashlee Shingoose. During the trial, court heard Skibicki targeted vulnerable women who frequented homeless shelters. During his hours-long police interrogation, Skibicki told police he met Contois on the bus, he first met Harris years earlier at Siloam Mission, he met Shingoose outside the Salvation Army and he met Myran in a back lane between Siloam and the Salvation Army. Skibicki said he used some shelters for meals. In court, a shelter worker testified Skibicki once told him "he had his own place. He was just there to stalk his victims." CBC reached out to Siloam Mission, Salvation Army, Main Street Project and N'Dinawemak — Our Relatives' Place to ask if this case led to any changes in shelter operations and safety protocols. Only N'Dinawemak executive director Frank Parkes agreed to an interview. "That's a really difficult subject, and I think it will be a difficult subject for a long time for our community to speak about, because we still, you know, are dealing every day with the tragedy of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls," Parkes said. Video evidence from inside N'Dinawemak at 190 Disraeli Freeway released during the trial shows Harris with Skibicki. That's where the staff member said he had heard Skibicki make that chilling comment. Several agencies initially partnered to run the shelter as an emergency response to the cold weather in 2021, but Parkes said now N'Dinawemak is operated as one organization. "It was really just a way of making sure that one organization had responsibility for all of the aspects of the shelter," said Parkes, who took on his role less than two years ago, after the women were murdered. He thinks the way it runs now helps to streamline communication if a potentially dangerous issue emerges. "We can communicate from somebody who sees a problem, you know … out in the common space, and then get that information up into, you know, leadership and people that can actually act on that information and investigate it and report it, so that has changed for sure," Parkes said. The Indigenous-led shelter works to hire people who are Indigenous and who have lived experience, Parkes said. That plays a role in how the shelter thinks about the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls and how they make decisions at the shelter, he said. "When you focus on hiring within the Indigenous community and you look at things through an Indigenous lens, then the whole story of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls becomes a part of how we make our decisions going forward, and so we kind of internalize it here because of our beliefs and our backgrounds and our shared experiences," Parkes said. "We're well aware that, you know, there are predators out there, and there are people that are exploiting women and girls." In response to the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, Parkes would like to establish a response team at N'Dinawemak to connect with those who are vulnerable. Over the last year, they've looked at ways they could do that, he said. Right now, the shelter is focused on transitional housing and how they can work to move people using shelters into housing, he said. While the other three shelters contacted by CBC declined an interview, a joint statement from those shelters as well as 1JustCity was provided through End Homelessness Winnipeg. WATCH | Melissa Robinson talks about the need for more safe spaces for vulnerable women: What's changed at shelters since serial killer targeted vulnerable women? 1 hour ago Duration 5:52 During Jeremy Skibicki's trial, court heard the now convicted serial killer targeted vulnerable women who frequented Winnipeg homeless shelters. CBC looked into whether the case led to changes in how shelters operate and their safety protocols. The statement said, in part, the organizations "regularly review, update and strengthen protocols," but they couldn't disclose specific security measures because of privacy, safety and the sensitive nature of shelter operations. It also said the memory of the four women "continues to compel our sector toward greater action and accountability." "Our collective priority remains the safety, dignity and well-being" of people who use their services, the statement said, and many organizations have "enhanced gender-specific accommodations, introduced more responsive intake practices and improved co-ordination among shelters." More safe options Morgan Harris's cousin Melissa Robinson says there still aren't enough safe spaces for vulnerable women and Winnipeg needs emergency shelters exclusively for women. "I feel like my cousin may still be around, you know, right now, if that option was there," Robinson said. "She was preyed upon. Those other women were preyed upon, you know. How many more men out there are thinking that same thing?" Robinson co-founded Morgan's Warriors, named for her cousin and aimed at helping other vulnerable people. The team Robinson works with has taken women to Velma's House, which is a safe space for women, but space there can be limited, she said. Willow Place and Ikwe Widdjiitiwin offer women-only shelters, but their focus is on people fleeing violence, an End Homelessness Winnipeg spokesperson said. N'Dinawemak, Siloam Mission, Main Street Project and the Salvation Army operate areas within their facilities reserved for women, the spokesperson said. Robinson would like to see emergency shelters for women in several areas of the city. "Put one in the core area, put one here in the North End, put one, you know, maybe in the West Broadway area, so you kind of have them spaced out," she said. A provincial spokesperson said the province increased funding rates for shelters, transitional housing services and homeless outreach mentors in October 2022. That increase included a 15 per cent top-up for safety and security measures, the spokesperson said. Manitoba Housing, Addictions and Homelessness Minister Bernadette Smith said her office is focused on getting people into housing with wraparound support. There are housing units earmarked for women, Smith said. "We know that homelessness is a real, you know, challenge for a lot of folks in this province, and it puts them at a disadvantage, as we've, you know, discovered with a lot of folks who are in shelter. They are unsafe at times," she said. At a news conference earlier this month, Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine announced a new specialized team will work with the Downtown Community Safety Partnership to help meet the needs of Indigenous women and girls. Fontaine said it's part of a four-year MMIWG2S+ provincial strategy named Mino'Ayaawag Ikwewag. When Fontaine was asked at the news conference about calls for women's shelters and how that could relate to the new specialized teams, she hinted that part of the province's strategy includes looking at the shelter system. "There hasn't been a substantial increase in ensuring that that infrastructure is up to date and modernized and meeting the needs of community," Fontaine said. "That's a fundamental part of the work that we're doing in Mino'Ayaawag Ikwewag, and it will be married perfectly with the work that these folks, these amazing women are doing on the streets."
