Thousands March to Remember and Demand Justice for Murdered and Missing Women

February 21, 2010

Thousands of peoples showed up to a peaceful but very powerful march to draw attention to the 500 murdered and missing woman.  This was not a 2010 Winter Olympic event but it did happen like it has for the last 18 years on Valentines Day, despite the 2010 Winter Olympic security clamp down.  The woman from Vancouver's Downtown East Side are attracting more and more attention to the struggle Indigenous woman have in getting their basic rights in Canada.  The compassion for this solemn responsibility could be felt when walking with the woman through the streets of Vancouver, BC, Canada. 

'The PM needs to step forward and initiate an inquiry'
 
By Sam Cooper, The Province
February 15, 2010

An annual demonstration for women murdered and missing in the Downtown Eastside grew by thousands as international media eyed marchers on Sunday afternoon.

Marchers, including relatives of missing women, pounded drums and chanted as they looped from the intersection of Main and Hastings streets through Gastown. They stopped in front of locations where women were last seen or found murdered, and laid roses and prayed.

Kim Washburn, a First Nations member, said he has attended all 19 annual marches, and this year's estimated turnout of about 4,000 dwarfed last year's turnout of around 1,000.

Shawn Atleo, national chief of the assembly of First Nations, called for a public inquiry into murders in the Downtown Eastside and on northern British Columbia's Highway 16, as well as in Manitoba.

"This is a national issue," Atleo told The Province. "The prime minister needs to step forward and initiate an inquiry."

Maggie de Vries, whose sister Sarah's DNA was found in 2002 on the farm of convicted murderer Robert Pickton, cried as she clutched a picture of Sarah.

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Submitted by Defenders of th... on Sun, 2010-02-21 02:53
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