Canadian aboriginals hold protest against rights abuses
Canada’s aboriginals have staged a demonstration to bring attention to the plight of the country’s First Nations before the federal election later this month.
On Friday, hundreds of people, including men, women and children, took to the streets in Canada’s second largest city of Montreal, to criticize political parties for ignoring their rights.
The protesters called for an inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women in Canada, according to local media.
More than 1,200 indigenous women and girls have disappeared across Canada – many for decades, rights groups say, with some even suggesting that indigenous women were eight times more likely to be murdered than non-indigenous ones.
“My daughter is only 13, but I worry that every time she leaves our home, that will be the last time I see her,” Cheryl Tenasco, one of the protesters at the rally told reporters . “This feeling is going to be there for the rest of my life,” she added.
The demonstrators further slammed lack of access to clean water, as 15 percent of the 600 aboriginal communities across the North American nation receive poor vital facilities.
They also showed their anger at the what they call poor living conditions they face on a daily basis. Some 40 percent of children of Canada’s First Nations live below the poverty line.
The protest comes just 10 days before Canadians are set to take to the polls in the federal elections on October 19.
Aboriginals account for nearly four-point-three percent of Canada’s population of over 35 million, but they struggle with poverty and desperation as well as high rates of crime and suicide.
In January 2014, Human Rights Watch (HRW) called on the Canadian government in Ottawa to set up a national public inquiry into the violence experienced by indigenous women and girls, and create a system for greater accountability for Canadian police misconduct.
This is while the federal government has refused to address the plight of aboriginals, attributing the disproportionate number of deaths and disappearances in the community to domestic violence.
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