All right. I can't talk really fast--I'm not an auctioneer--so bear with me.
To begin with, my name is Jojo Sutherland. I'm going to give you my own experience. I had to leave my reservation because of family violence.
On the reservation in the seventies, family violence was an everyday thing. You married the guy and you had to stick with the guy.
The band house gets given to you. The band house doesn't belong to the female, it belongs to the male. If you decide to leave, you have to leave the house.
That's what happened to me. I left my house with two suitcases, one with clothes and the other with pictures of my children. By that time, my daughter was 16 years old.
I became involved with drugs and alcohol because I had no place to go. I prostituted my body so that I could support myself. And deep down....
The guys stay in the home with everything in it and continue with a different family. This is what we suffer as aboriginal women. I went to Calgary and experienced drugs, alcohol, prostitution. I got beaten up a lot there, just as I got beaten up at home.
Remember, when you're just a woman you're without a voice, and if your husband is a family member of the chief and council, they do not hear you. You have no voice. You cannot report it. In the words of the ex-chief, who I knew and who was friends with my ex-husband, it was my fault that I got beaten up.
I moved on and I lost everything. I lost everything.
So that is a little bit of my story.
I am sorry I can't talk any faster. It must be one minute now.