Group says Sask. hot spot for violence against women

Members of the Sisters in Spirit initiative say this province is a hot spot for racialized and sexualized violence.

The SIS initiative was started by the Native Women's Association of Canada and has done extensive research to identify areas in Canada where there's a high rate of missing and murdered aboriginal women, said Theresa Ducharme, a community development co-ordinator for SIS.

"I'm sad to say Regina is one of them as well as Saskatoon, so that's why we're here in Saskatchewan," said Ducharme, who can't explain why the numbers are so high.

On Friday the group was in Regina at the Gathering Place to speak about the issue of missing and murdered aboriginal women. SIS plans to host 10 similar workshops across Canada; the first was held in Saskatoon on Wednesday.

"We're here to educate. We're here to do prevention. We're here to give the tools to say, 'This is what you can do not only to prevent it but to raise awareness,' " Ducharme said.

She said it's important to raise awareness about the issue, and provided those in attendance with information and violence awareness tool kits. Ducharme said it's important to keep talking about the issue of violence against women because it's not getting better.

"This is like a genocide happening right under our nose and everyone is silent about it," said Ducharme.

LINK: To the entire article at the Saskatoon Phoenix