[Witness speaks in her native language]
Madam Chair, honourable members, my name is Christine Simard and I am the director of women's development, Nishnawbe Aski Nation. I am pleased to have the opportunity to contribute to the committee's study on violence against aboriginal women.
With the Nishnawbe Aski Nation, we represent 49 first nations within the territory of James Bay Treaty 9 and the Ontario portions of Treaty 5. The total approximate population of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation members on and off reserve is 45,000. The people of NAN traditionally speak Ojibway, Cree, and Ojicree.
I want to share a little bit of the historical perspective of violence and how it came to be within our first nation communities.
First nation members of Nishnawbe Aski Nation have been displaced. They've been taken away from homes and forced to attend residential schools. We have gone through radar sites on the coast of James Bay, the sixties scoop, and alcohol, solvent, and prescription drug abuse. A large number of suicides have happened over the past 25 years among our young people, and of course there's domestic violence that ties in with all of this. There are many contributing factors that end up with our women facing violence.
Within Nishnawbe Aski Nation we are fortunate enough to have a policing program called Nishnawbe Aski Police Services, which is also known as NAPS. According to the NAPS statistics, from 2006 to 2009 there were a total of 1,556 calls to domestic disputes. For sexual assaults there were a total of 569 cases reported. That equals 2,125 types of violence against first nation women within Nishnawbe Aski Nation.