Gwenda Yuzicappi stands before an audience in a Stanford University conference room. She prays for her missing daughter, Amber Redman who, at 19, vanished from Fort Qu’Appelle, Canada on July 15, 2005. And she prays for the missing and murdered women from Canada; Mexico and Guatemala.

For Yuzicappi, from the Standing Buffalo First Nation in Saskatchewan, Canada, it is as if it happened yesterday.

“I saw a young woman who resembled her and I thanked her for allowing me to hold her. She was reading all the names of the missing women last night at the vigil,” she tells the audience, tears weaving throughout her words and thickening her voice. This is perhaps the most important thing she has: her voice.

For her and a panel of mothers of missing women from Canada, Guatemala and Mexico who were at Stanford University in Palo Alto May 17-19 as part of a conference on murdered and missing women, one thing was clear: they would not be silenced.

Public awareness of the plight of the women of Juarez, Mexico has been heightened in films, books and personal testimony. But thousands of miles away, on the other side of the U.S. border, First Nation women have also been disappearing or found murdered.

In 2004, Amnesty International released a report outlining the discrimination and violence against indigenous women in Canada.

It is estimated that there are approximately 500 First Nations women missing in Canada, mostly from the Western Provinces, over the past 15 years or so. But according to Amnesty International’s “Stolen Sisters” report, “Given the significant gaps in available information, it is not possible to comment on the accuracy of this estimate…. Yet, no matter what the exact toll of murdered and missing women has been, Canadian authorities have not adequately addressed their fate.

“Before Amber went missing,” said Yuzicappi, “I didn’t know about the large number of First Nation women in Canada who have been missing.”

In Guatemala, Amnesty International reported that more than 2,000 women have been murdered.

Said Norma Cruz, whose daughter was a victim of sexual violence in Guatemala, “there is a link between the civil war and violence against women.” Cruz, who has become an activist for women’s human rights in her country, said, “Some are no longer here to tell their story but for those who live, we will not give up. In the terror of war we have emerged stronger. But, it’s not easy to hear the sisters from other countries confirm that there are no borders, in the violence against women.”

In Juarez, Mexico, it is reported that about 400 women have been murdered over the last fourteen years and more than 1,000 have been reported disappeared.

“We should all be united and pressure the government. They follow me. They threaten me but I will keep talking,” said Eva Arce, whose daughter Silvia Arce disappeared from Juarez on March 11, 1998. She added, “They disappeared my daughter, menaced another.” And, she said they killed her grandson once he started asking questions about his mother’s death.

What ties together these tales of the missing and murdered is impunity--law enforcement seems to shrug off the murders.

In the report Stolen Sisters: “The perpetrators, where known, include both intimate acquaintances and strangers. In some cases, the crimes remain unsolved. In every instance, Canadian authorities could and should have done more to ensure the safety of these women and girls or to address the social and economic factors that had helped put them in harm’s way.”

Participants of the conference drafted a letter demanding that political leaders start pushing for thorough investigations.

For Yuzicappi, speaking out keeps the memory of her daughter alive. “I named her Red Star Woman when she was 10. At night, I look for the reddest star I can see and I pray and I pray and I pray to that star.” ♦




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