Good morning. My name is Karine Gentelet, and I am the coordinator of aboriginal rights for Amnesty International. I am a volunteer member and I also sit on the board of directors of Amnesty International.
I'm going to agree with the director that the violence suffered by aboriginal women is a much broader problem than a criminal problem. This violence has economic, social and cultural roots.
She talked about the disposition of lands, the gradual destruction of institutions and of the social fabric in the communities. However, I would add that there is also a statistical problem. It is very hard to have access to figures when you want to work on violence against women.
I know that a joint committee in Saskatchewan has worked in an attempt to collate information, and aboriginal women's organizations also worked to establish data bases, but we lack data bases in Canada on violence against women, on the causes and repercussions of violence. That information would be very useful. I would also say that violence against women is a problem or racism and prejudices within Canadian society.
For example, when the predators were caught after aboriginal women disappeared or were murdered, the Canadian courts showed that those women had been targeted because they were aboriginal, because they were vulnerable and because they were isolated. So there is obvious racism. When we conduct research on the disappearances, we see that the police investigations often took longer to start because there were prejudices. It's often believed that these women left, that they ran away or abandoned their families, but it takes months to start the investigations, whereas often they were kidnapped or are dead.
That's it, thank you.