The Silence is Broken: Now What?

On July 20, more than 80 people came out to the event “The Silence is Broken, But the Violence Continues: Now What?” held at the Native Canadian Centre of Toronto.
Four panelists spoke about where the efforts should go to end the murders and disappearances of Indigenous women, two-spirited and transgendered people. Panelists were Lee Maracle, Darlene Ritchie, Krysta Williams, and Erin Konsmo of the Native Youth Sexual Health Network.
There was also a screening of the film “Survival, Strength, Sisterhood: Power of Women in the Downtown Eastside.”

“Survival, Strength, Sisterhood” is a short film that documents the 20-year history of the annual women’s memorial march for missing and murdered women in Vancouver, Coast Salish Territories.

By focusing on the voices of the women who live, love, and work in the Downtown Eastside, this film is designed to debunk the sensationalism that surrounds a neighborhood that is deeply misunderstood, and celebrates the complex and diverse realities of women organizing for justice.

Harsha Walia, one of the producers of the film, is a South Asian activist, writer, and researcher based in Vancouver, Coast Salish Territories. She has been involved in the migrant justice movement, along with working with the women of the Downtown Eastside.

Walia said “the issue of the missing and murdered women is critical and it is a crisis that deserves much more attention than what it is getting.”

Walia believes that by chronicling the 40 women that were in the film “it gives a more humanized sense to the issues the women of the Downtown Eastside face” and she hopes that “it will open the eyes of many people to the nature of the systemic realities of poverty, racism, colonization, violence against women, addictions, disability, child apprehension, and policing that has impacted and given rise to the issues surrounding missing and murdered Indigenous women.

No More Silence and the Toronto Missing and Murdered Women Committee at the Native Canadian Centre hosted the event. No More Silence intends to have a follow-up event and encourages everyone to come out and continue the dialogue that has begun because every year the list of women that goes missing increases.