Yet another "under-reported" stories list

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MEDIUM RARE

Every year, lists of "under-reported" stories come out. They're stories that made the back pages of newspapers or newscasts somewhere, but were overlooked or ignored by the major news media. Either way, someone decided these "under-reported" stories needed more attention.

Most of these lists don't deserve more attention. They're about, say, alien abductions, the latest conspiracy theory on the death of Princess Diana or the secret plan by certain people to dominate the world. It can get weird.

Some lists, however, highlight serious gaps in news coverage. They identify the under-reported tragedy experienced by millions of refugees in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. They draw attention to the slowly sinking Pacific Island nations due to global warming. They mention that 14 million people around the world died last year from tuberculosis, malaria, and sleeping sickness-all this with hardly a mention in the news.

Closer to home, the Canadian news media ignores or overlooks some stories too. Occasionally, they include stories about Aboriginal peoples. But there's no list concentrating on under-reported Aboriginal stories. Too bad. It might be enlightening.

The Dudley George story would have made this list for years. George was an unarmed man killed in 1995 at Ipperwash Provincial Park in Ontario. "The-only-good-Indian-is-a-dead-Indian" attitudes apparently infected the highest levels of the Ontario government. The Ontario Provincial Police seemed obliged to wage war upon Native demonstrators with deadly force. The story might have been covered up, but for a couple of Toronto Star reporters who refused to let politicians off the hook.

Any list of under-reported Aboriginal stories should identify corporate or government irresponsibility, abuse of authority, decisions by those in positions of power or influence that cheapen the lives of Aboriginal peoples, even if those responsible are Aboriginal peoples themselves.

In no particular order, here are some suggestions.

1. A Web site (http://www.MissingNativeWomen.ca) reminds people of the "approximately 500 First Nations women missing in Canada, mostly from our western provinces, over the past 15 years."

Some of these women were prostitutes, but most were just poor, homeless and vulnerable. What they all seem to have in common is society's disdain for "disposable" people. The media seems to consider news about missing Aboriginal women routine-regrettable, but ultimately avoidable.

If the work is so dangerous, why don't these women just get off the streets? Is it news when Aboriginal women go missing all of the time? Both attitudes conspire to ensure that stories about missing Aboriginal women are ignored.

Many of the 61 women listed as missing or murdered from the streets of East Vancouver, and ignored for years by the media and police, are finally recognized with the arrest of Robert William Pickton. He's now on trial for the murder of 22 of these women.

However, some worry that the Pickton trial will divert attention from the hundreds of other missing Aboriginal women across Canada. No one, including Aboriginal journalists, pays much attention to them.

2. There are more Aboriginal children today in the custody of provincial child welfare systems across Canada than there ever were during the height of the "Sixties Scoop."

Aboriginal children are increasingly removed from their families, communities and societies, despite well-researched consequences to those Aboriginal communities and their children. Recommendations by judicial inquiries for alternatives to institutionalization are ignored. Aboriginal child welfare organizations-under-trained, under-staffed, under-funded, over-loaded and sometimes undermined-haven't stemmed the tide.

Yet both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal journalists pay little attention to this scandal.

3. One study of sexually exploited children in a western city finds that about 90 per centf child prostitutes, some as oung as eight years old, are Aboriginal. The story hits front pages, prompted by release of the study, and then disappears.