Eliminating structural violence against Indigenous women and girls

Recommendation 3: Increased state enforcement alone cannot eliminate violence against Indigenous women and girls because structural violence is connected to individual acts of male violence. A comprehensive national-level integrated action plan to eliminate violence against Indigenous women and girls must address all the socio-economic factors impacting Indigenous women’s, girls’, trans and two-spirit’s safety including equitable access and self-determination over land, culture, language, housing, child care, income security, employment, education, and physical, mental, sexual and spiritual health.

Immediate services needed in the DTES

Recommendation 18: An Indigenous Health and Wellness Centre in the DTES and Indigenous-run health programs that use Indigenous methods to address physical, mental, sexual, emotional, and spiritual harms. Also fund more mobile healthcare vans and community-based clinics, street nurses, and healthcare providers in the DTES.

Immediate services needed in the DTES

Recommendation 22: Guarantee a 24/7 Indigenous mental health and addictions counselling program that is low-barrier, drop-in based, available on demand, and includes overnight street-based counselling in the DTES. Also ensure long-term mental health and addiction services, ranging from prevention, early intervention, treatment, crisis care, home visits, and aftercare.

Recommendations to end Indigenous women’s displacement from land

On reserve

Recommendation 47: Close the gaps in health outcomes between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities and focus on indicators such as infant mortality, maternal health, suicide, mental health, addictions, life expectancy, birth rates, infant and child health issues, chronic diseases, illness and injury incidence, and the availability of appropriate health services.

Recommendations to guarantee economic security for Indigenous women in the DTES

Employment security

Recommendation 77: Rectify Indigenous women’s exclusion from the economy by:

1. Developing equitable and inclusive hiring policy and standards.
2. Creating a diversity of low-barrier jobs in the DTES with priority hiring and support for Indigenous women of the community.
3. Creating peer-based employment programs including navigation positions throughout the housing, mental health, substance use, and income support systems.
4. Ensuring Indigenous women peer workers are paid a living wage, have full benefits, and have the right to unionization.
5. Creating jobs that value and compensate skills such as weaving, beading, drum making, food harvesting, and traditional healing, and support the creation of an Indigenous women’s cooperative in the DTES.
6. Improving employment supports and workplace accommodations for Indigenous women who are single parents and/or in recovery to ensure that they are not setup to fail in their employment due to systemic barriers.

Recommendations to keep Indigenous families together in the DTES

Support Indigenous families

Recommendation 123: Guarantee free individualized support such as culturally appropriate parenting programs; detox on demand; and counselling for mothers with mental health diagnoses, learning disabilities, drug use dependence, and who are survivors of domestic violence.

Recommendations to end criminalization of Indigenous women in the DTES

Recommendation 134: Redirect growing municipal, provincial, and federal police and prison budgets towards solutions that increase safety for Indigenous women such as more housing, child care, income, healthcare, mental health and addictions services, and healing supports.

Recommendations to end criminalization of Indigenous women in the DTES

Access to justice

Recommendation 160: Increase Indigenous women’s Access to justice by extending funding to guarantee all Indigenous women have access to full legal aid for criminal and civil legal matters including family, criminal, mental health, and poverty legal aid.

Recommendations to end criminalization of Indigenous women in the DTES

Access to justice

Recommendation 167: Implement existing recommendations in Justice Reform for British Columbia by Community Legal Assistance Society, Pivot Legal Society, West Coast LEAF, and B.C. Civil Liberties Association.

Recommendations to end criminalization of Indigenous women in the DTES

Correctional facilities

Recommendation 176: All day-to-day programs and services at remand, provincial, and federal facilities must be accessible, timely, and long term with the goal of decarceration and successful reintegration. Access must be unconditional, not contingent on classification, and not withdrawn as a punitive or disciplinary measure. Guaranteed programs and services must include:

1. Independent prison legal services.
2. Independent healthcare in accordance with the U.N. Mandela rules including 24/7 appropriate healthcare; mental health counselling; access to gender-affirming surgery; detox on demand; heroin-assisted and injectable hydromorphone treatment; and safe needle exchange and tattooing program.
3. Culturally appropriate and non-punitive healing programs that understand physical, mental, spiritual, and sexual traumas as intergenerational collective traumas caused by colonization.
4. Free phone calls.
5. Nutritious food.
6. Library, reading materials, and computer literacy.
7. Increased visitation, including increased hours, more opportunities for physical contact, and decreased security checks for visitors.
8. Access to meaningful employment and higher prisoner pay.
9. Support for release planning.