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Les femmes autochtones du Canada subissent de sérieuses violations des droits humains, en particulier d'un taux de violence inacceptable. Cet article décrit comment l'extrême violence raciale envers les femmes autochtones les fait disparaître et même les assassine. L'auteure a étudié le travail de la Coalition nationale pour nos surs enlevées qui travaille activement à dénoncer ces attaques raciales et qui appuie l'initiative des Surs d'esprit en aidant les familles des victimes à se familiariser avec la justice et autres systèmes analogues.
Aboriginal women in Canada are the victims of very serious human rights violations. One blatant example is the legislative gap in both federal and provincial law in protecting a spouse's right to equal division of matrimonial real property on-reserve. All other Canadians are protected by provincial laws regarding this matter, but the same laws are not applicable on-reserve because only the federal government has jurisdiction over "lands reserved for Indians" and this includes real property onreserve. There has never been a law enacted by the Canadian Parliament to address how real property, including matrimonial homes, will be divided when a marriage or common-law relationship breaks down. Aboriginal women and their children who reside onreserve directly bear die brunt of this serious legislative gap. Further, because almost all reserves in Canada suffer from a severe lack of adequate housing, women who cannot remain in the family home are forced to go elsewhere with their children. This is only one example of the rights of on-reserve women remaining unprotected; a parallel situation concerning non-Aboriginal women does not exist in Canada.
These facts remain in spite of the fact that for most of the decade up to the year 2001, Canada was ranked number one among 175 countries in the world as being die best country in which to live. The United Nations' Human Development Index (HDI) makes this determination through its Quality of Life survey which examines the health, education and wealth of a country's citizens by measuring life expectancy, educational achievement, secondary and tertiary enrolment and standard of living.1
These findings would make one think that almost all Canadians citizens do quite well, and perhaps this is the case. For the Aboriginal people who have been living ab initia on these lands, this is simply...