Letter to Ministers: Sexual Exploitation and Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls

Re: Sexual Exploitation and Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls

Dear Ministers,

We are writing to commend you on the launch of the National Inquiry and to call your attention to the link between sexual exploitation and missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. We ask that the causes and consequences of gendered, racialized and sexualized violence be examined and included in the National Inquiry.

As we highlighted in the letter to Minister Wilson-Raybould earlier this month (in regards to the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act), members of our group are confronted with the appalling realities many Indigenous women and girls in Canada face on a daily basis, and we recognize the overlap between commercial sexual exploitation and missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. As a group who works to be intentional at listening and learning from Indigenous voices and leaders, we in the Working Group on Human Trafficking in Canada know that Indigenous women and girls are at a higher risk of facing violence, sexual exploitation and trafficking than non-Indigenous women and girls in Canada.