Hundreds of people took part in the 11th annual missing and murdered indigenous women Mother’s Day march in Winnipeg May 10. (CBC)
Downtown Winnipeg more unsafe for indigenous women than it was in 1960s, woman says
Hundreds of people marched in memory of Canada’s missing and murdered indigenous women (MMIW) in downtown Winnipeg on a day most moms spent with their families.
The 11th annual Sisters in Spirit Mother’s Day walk started at the St. Regis Hotel Sunday afternoon, the site where 16-year-old Sunshine Wood disappeared in February of 2004.
“She was seen going into the door and she never came out,” said Sylvia James, who has been involved in the movement for years. “As a grandmother of a four-year-old granddaughter, I have fear of what her future will be like.”
Sylvia James said downtown Winnipeg has become more unsafe for indigenous women from when she first came to the city in the 1960s. (CBC)
James said downtown Winnipeg has become unsafe for indigenous women.
“I am always looking behind, or looking to see who is coming to meet me on the street when I’m walking,” said James. “That’s the way our city has [become] from the 1960s when I first came here. It was safer to walk downtown.”
Billy Jo Shingoose took part in the walk Sunday to show support for friends and families who have lost loved ones to violence. Shingoose said her best friend Kelly, a mother of three, was stabbed to death when she was nine-months pregnant.
It’s been a decade since her friend died, and Shingoose said police still haven’t found her killer.
“I get teary-eyed and I get overwhelmed,” said Shingoose. “I have to keep my head up high and we have to find them. Who is doing this? who is killing our people? Not just our people, everybody’s people.”
Shingoose says she’s still optimistic the person who murdered her friend will be caught.
The walk ended at the Oodena Celebration Circle at The Forks in the afternoon.
RED POWER MEDIA 
Happy Heavenly Mother’s Day to #MMIW
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