Watchaye.
Good afternoon, Madam Chair, vice-chairs and committee members. My name is Anna Betty Achneepineskum. I am the deputy grand chief of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation and the Ontario representative on the Assembly of First Nations women’s council. I am joining you virtually from Niagara Falls, which is on the traditional territories of the Haudenosaunee and Anishinabe peoples. I am happy to be here today to present on the topic of domestic and intimate partner violence. I am joined by Julie McGregor, who is the director of justice at the Assembly of First Nations.
First of all, in terms of the work that is done by the AFN women's council, it is mandated to provide the AFN executive committee with advice by affirming “the importance of building and strengthening partnerships between men and women [and gender-diverse people] in all levels of decision-making within the AFN, as an integral step in achieving an equitable society.” The AFN women’s council comprises one or more females in leadership positions representing each of the 10 regions. There is one each from British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and Labrador, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, the Northwest Territories and the Yukon territory. Each region is responsible for identifying the process for the appointment of their regional representatives.
The AFN supports the “families first” principle in all the work we do on the MMIWG file. We believe it is important that the MMIWG national action plan reflects the voices of those who, for many years, have been advocating for the health and safety of our women. The AFN was a party with standing to the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, and the AFN women’s council continues to strongly advocate for the implementation of all 231 calls for justice.
Last year, in 2021, the AFN women’s council carried a national engagement process in all 10 AFN regions for the development of the first nations national action plan. The AFN women’s council believes strongly in listening to survivors and families about what is needed to end violence against first nations women, girls and 2-spirit and gender-diverse people. When the chiefs-in-assembly passed resolution 67/2019, giving the AFN women’s council the mandate to coordinate our own engagement process with first nations, the mandate included the directive to ensure that a “families first” principle was used. In carrying out this mandate, we kept survivors and families at the heart of the work throughout the engagement processes.
In the Ontario region alone, the Chiefs of Ontario first nations women’s caucus and the AFN women’s council hosted 26 virtual engagement sessions with families and survivors. These virtual sessions included 10 sessions in southern Ontario, 10 in northern Ontario and six sessions dedicated to the Nishnawbe Aski Nation language groups, with translations in Cree, Oji-Cree and Ojibwa. The northern and southern Ontario sessions also had multiple sessions dedicated specifically to first nations youth and first nations 2SLGBTQQIA+ peoples.
After the engagement was done, the Chiefs of Ontario first nations women's caucus hosted the MMIWG family gathering to build on the momentum in the region and formulate a detailed gender-based violence action plan to strategically support first nations in Ontario to prevent violence. It includes human trafficking awareness and prevention initiatives, gender diversity and bias awareness, and men's healing programs.