The Murder of Aboriginal Girls and the Grassy Narrows first Nations (Coursework Sample)

Relationship between Two Topics
Name:
Institution:
Relationship between Two Topics
Cases of missing or murdered Aboriginal girls and women has been on the rise. The Canadian government through its security agencies have stepped in to resolve the issue. However, there are some underlying circumstances that might have induced the attacks. On the Grassy Lands, there have been much attention placed on the region, and this order shall delve into examining the reasons for this attention, and why Canadians support the struggles in Grassy Lands. The paper will then make a determination of the relationship between these two topics.
The first topic is the issue of missing and murdered Aboriginal girls and women has been a highlight in the Canadian government. Towards the end of the year 2013, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police did a study of all the reported incidences of murdered and missing Aboriginal women across all police jurisdictions within Canada. From the report, the police were able to record an estimate of missing Aboriginal females to 164 missing. The cause of the missing females in most cases is characterized as unknown but most times, foul play is detected by the police. The same report recorded 1,017 incidences of murdered females and/ or homicide victims. This leads to a total of 1, 181 females indicating that Aboriginal women are over represented among those women who are missing or murdered in Canada.
The high rates of violence that have threatened the lives of indigenous Canadian women mainly occur in the major Canadian cities, on reserve, and on any other regions of the country. Aboriginal girls and women also face life threatening gender based violence because of racism and hatred. Sexual assault against Aboriginal women is likely to occur in the Northern Canada which has a higher population of the Aboriginal people than in other provinces. 460,000 incidences of sexual assault is reported every year. Aboriginal women have consistently reported violent attacks by their partners. The women have in many cases been represented as sex traders (Oxman-Martinez et al., 2005), a factor that may also lead to the many sexual assaults reported by the Aboriginal girls and women. Majority of the sexually assaulted women have been reported to have both a history of rape and other assaults while working as prostitutes and childhood sexual abuse by many perpetrators.
The level of violence is very high in Canada especially among the Aboriginal female population. This is so because of the elevated risks of victimization and offending that exists within their communities. Women are the most affected because the girls tend to be very young and vulnerable (Lochner, 2013); some are living within a single –parent family state; they undergo the highest levels of unemployment; and they practice of sex trade and consumption of alcohol by Aboriginal women is also very high. Most of the females are also not able to access proper housing and education. All these factors lead to the prevalent attacks on the Aboriginal females as compared to their Non- Aboriginal counterparts.
Police have continued to perform their duties as public officers when it comes to violence report that that women are being attacked and some are missing. Most of these attacks are caused by the Aboriginal males within that community. Whenever an incident is reported, the police may make arrest and charge the perpetrators but such charges are normally laid off on account of not guilty outcomes. This is because the dismissal rate of the accused Aboriginals are very high because the victims are very reluctant in attending court to testify. This is why the police are forced to drop off most violence cases against the women. All these have been linked to the colonization process that led to the loss of control over culture and family.
The first Nations organization mainly consists of a group of Aboriginal persons within Ontario, Canada and other cities. The organization help women to move out of violence by funding support programs and emergency shelters as well as operational follow up programs to assist the affected females. There are several other organizations that are concerned with the issue at hand like the Native’s Women Association of Canada who have conducted several research and made recommendations that can assist in solving the problem of violence against Aboriginal females.
Such an issue must be considered by all Canadians because it affects the entire criminal justice system and paints a very bad picture of the country. They must therefore understand the situation so as to be able to create awareness by themselves in order to correct and better the existing circumstances. The violence is a form of discrimination and hatred that every Canadian must be made aware of, for it to come to an end (Amnesty International, 2009: Kong & Beatie, 2009).
The second topic is about the Grassy Narrows First Nation. The Grassy Narrows First Nation is an Ojibwa first nation that is situated about 80 kilometers on the northern part of Ontario Canada. The nation is land based on the Indian reserves along the famous English river and it comprises of about 1500 people as at the year 2013. The nation is a signatory to a treaty or an agreement that was entered into between themselves and the queen. In the said agreement, the Grassy Narrows First Nation gave up their aboriginal name to a very large parcel of land in the Eastern Manitoba as well as the Northwestern part of Ontario. Part of the English river was therefore reserved for the tribe and they could use it for fishing, hunting and other domains.
Grassy Nation has been given attention in the last few years because of the environmental issues that are affecting the population. First and fore most is the issue of mercury poisoning that resulted from Dryden Chemical Company located in Ontario that deals in supplying chlorine and sodium hydroxide, used for bleaching paper in the production of pulp. The company discharged some of its effluents into the English river system. The first nation community was highly affected because they had to stop fishing and eating the fish, which is their major source of proteins. They were forced to close down their commercial businesses of fishing thus leading to many financial losses. This led to an economic tragedy for the Indian reserve because of unemployment and a reduction in tourism. The mercury still remain, though levels are now reduced in the fish but this still pose danger to the population.
Another environmental concern facing the nation is with regard to deforestation which has resulted into immense cutting of trees for the paper industry (Julia, 2013). The locals have held demonstrations and protested to the government to introduce a policy that will ensure selective process in cutting of the trees. This is because they are afraid that if such a policy is not implemented, there will be mass deforestation which will in turn damage their local habitat as if having not suffered enough already because of the pollution of the river system.
In relation to the foregoing, Ontario court has in the past ruled that logging and timber cannot be authorized if it infringes on the existing treaty that had earlier promised to protect the aboriginal community rights of traditional trapping and hunting. The logging therefore affects the forests within the community and is worsened off by the mercury poisoning that have been in existence for the past decades. However, the federal government are of the opinion that the mercury poisoning at Grassy Narrow is under control.
Many Canadians have joined to support the struggles at the Grassy Narrows because of the importance of having a good healthy environment. If the government continues to allow clear cut logging as it has done in the past, and in breach of the treaty, there will be increased level of mercury in the system which will then mean that water will be contaminated and the lands destroyed and this will have a negative effect on the entire population of Canada. This is why the Canadians should be bothered by the issue at hand because each and every human population deserves the highest standard of human rights protection and equal treatment.
There exists a relationship between these two topics. From the environmental and social cultural challenges facing the aboriginal community, they can be understood as a social, political, and a geographical community. The community identify themselves with the single idea of being part of that given ‘community’, which in turn gives them a sense of strength and unity. The social cultural issues that arises within the community are perceived as those of the community
Similarly, from the two topics we are also able to see that social injustices exist among the community as can be seen by the various forms of discriminatory treatments and unfairness in terms of how the Aboriginals are treated. The environmental and social cultural challenges that they face are not properly handled well by the relevant authorities as compared to the manner in which they handle non- aboriginal cases. The social Justice and human rights are not properly met in both scenarios. A life of dignity that is free from any disadvantage or discrimination is the most ideal life. It is a basic human right that we all share in common and therefore no one should be deprived of it.
Both Aboriginals and occupants of the Grassy land face challenges that are life threatening. The Grassy Land occupa...