On March 26, 2017, I was sexually assaulted in a university lecture hall. After it happened, I was very confused and overwhelmed, and I wasn't sure if it happened because I'm racialized, queer or a woman. What my research afterward did show is that marginalized peoples are far more likely to experience forms of sexual violence and gendered abuse. It's important to keep in mind that the communities facing sexual abuse and sexual violence are the very same communities that have historically and systematically been excluded from the political process.
I think it's pretty clear that the consequences are devastating. At least 16 indigenous women were forcibly sterilized in Saskatchewan as recently as 2017. Similar reports have been echoed in Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario. Thousands upon thousands of missing and murdered indigenous women have experienced forms of sexual abuse and physical abuse, and their names still ring in the families that are missing them. I want to make it clear that it isn't a cultural genocide, as the Canadian government might call it—this is a genocide, period.
Other forms of sexual abuse exist within other marginalized communities. Queer women and bisexual women are nine times more likely to face sexual abuse, even when every other factor is accounted for, such as poverty, housing and location. I think it's really important to keep in mind that these communities aren't being represented in the political process, because of this legacy of historical exclusion. The fact is that only 26% of people in Parliament are women. That's a devastating number, because gendered violence, as an issue, won't be represented in the same way.
I am here today to ask everyone to ensure that people affected by the policies and the realities of Canada today are at the table to speak about these issues. It's important to have indigenous women there. It's important to have women of colour, disabled women, queer women and every other kind of women at the table when you talk about forms of violence and sexual violence, because the way in which they experience this trauma and the way in which they are affected by it are very different for every woman.