Your search

www.lapismagazine.org presents Beverley Jacobs, Mohawk from the Six Nations of the Grand River Territory in southwestern Ontario, President of the Native Women's Association of Canada, at the Teach-In on Indigenous Peoples' Resistance to Economic Globalization, November 2006. She speaks on the effect of globalization on indigenous women worldwide. Part 2

Plusieurs fois au cours des dernières années chacune de nous a parcouru avec beaucoup de plaisir un premier exemplaire des Cahiers de la femmes/CWS sur les femmes autochtones. Ce magazine a toujours encouragé l'écriture des femmes autochtones depuis le premier article des femmes Mohawks de Kanawake dans le deuxième numéro des Cahiers bien avant la mode des écrits autochtones. Les années ont passé et beaucoup de choses ont changé. On compte de plus en plus de femmes autochtones qui écrivent et le nombre de textes soumis pour ce numéro en est la preuve. C'est un encouragement porté par l'espoir. Un des thèmes les plus évidents de ce numéro porte sur l'importance de vivre nos traditions autochtones. Ce message omniprésent, que ce soit dans un article sur les arts ou sur la loi, n'était pas apparent dans le premier numéro sur les femmes autochtones. Un autre thème prouve que notre écriture n'est pas dissociée de notre quotidien. Nous sommes des activistes et ce numéro est sûrement une célébration des femmes activistes autochtones. Ce ne fut pas tâche facile d'organiser les sections de ce numréro à cause des liens à établir Quel défi que de vouloir catégoriser le travail autochtone ! Dans une perspective holistique chacun des articles aurait pu se retrouver dans les quatre sections et chaque section aurait pu être reliée à l'autre. Raconter des histoires par exemple, est de l'activisme et chaque histoire dans ce Cahier est engagée dans un processus de partage de nos savoirs pour le changement. En outre, les savoirs autochtones prennent leur source dans le principe de "toute ma famille"; la gouvernance implique l'application des savoirs autochtones; les arts expriment notre relation avec nos familles et ainsi de suite. Cela dit, nous espérons que les lectrices et les lecteurs apprécieront les catégories choisies. Nous croyons qu'elles offrent une nouvelle approche à notre activisme, à nos légendes, à notre savoir et à nos familles.

Le 11 juin 2008, le Premier ministre Stephen Harper au nom du peuple canadien a présenté des excuses à l'égard des enfants autochtones jadis gardés dans des pensionnats. Les ministres de l'opposition Stéphane [Stephane Dion], Jack Layton et Gilles Duceppe ont fait de même. Tous les chefs des organisations nationales d'autochtones ont réagi positivement à cet exercice public. En sa qualité de présidente nationale de l'Associations de femmes autochtones du Canada, l'auteure a eu la responsabilité de diffuser ce message afin que tous en prennent connaissance. Elle en fut honorée et au nom des femmes autochtones du Canada elle a parlé du fond du coeur en témoignant de l'impact de ce système scolaire spécialement sur les femmes autochtones. I then had to reflect on my own personal upbringing and heard about the horrendous abuses that my own grandmother and her siblings had to endure while they attended the "Mush Hole," the Mohawk Institute in Brantford, Ontario. I also reflected and reviewed my matrilineal family and the affects that these abuses had on my mother, her siblings and their families. My grandmother and mother had already passed away when I began to realize the intergenerational impacts, so I wasn't able to have direct conversations with them about this issue. I am not sure my grandmother would have wanted to talk about it anyway. I was, however, able to sit with my uncle, my grandmother's brother, and he told me many horrible stories. I began to understand how much was stolen from my matriarchal family as a result of my grandmother attending the Mush Hole. It became a reality that our traditional form of educating our children through language and traditional teachings that were supposed to be taught to us by our grandmother was stolen from her; her language was sexually beaten from her and her spirit was beaten by a system designed to destroy her. She was a Mohawk girl whose life was taken from us by genocidal policies of the Canadian government and religious denominations of churches. Most Canadians became a little educated on June 11, 2008 about the assimilationist policy of the Canadian government. Being that this is one of the most troubling "black marks" against Canada, every Canadian person should be knowledgeable that the human rights violations that occurred against Aboriginal children is as a result of Canada's genocidal policies. Every Canadian person should know its impacts on Aboriginal peoples, and more specifically on Aboriginal women. Everyone should know that the negative issues of the poverty, alcoholism, drug addiction and the cycle of violence can be traced back to Canada's policies. We can even trace the issue of missing and murdered Aboriginal women to the residential school system. All of this must be mandatorily taught in all Canadian schools. It shouldn't have taken until the year 2008 for most Canadians to be educated about the residential school system.

Because of the historical restrictions in the Indian Act, when couples who are separating or divorcing and agree on how to deal with their matrimonial real property, they do not have a comprehensive legal framework within which they can give effect to their intentions. Where couples do not agree, there is no mechanism for resolving their disputes. Many of these couples are attending provincial courts to obtain court orders for an equal division of their assets and find out that the courts will not and cannot address the situation of the property on reserve because of jurisdictional squabbling. That's the issue that NWAC is trying to find solutions to the fact that many women and their children are suffering because it is the women and children who are forced out of their family homes. It is the women and children who are the most affected because of the housing crises on reserve. It is the women and children who have to try to find places to stay, whether it's with their own families, in shelters (of which there are only 36 shelters on reserve) or have to move to an urban centre mostly with no financial resources. This is where the cycle again occurs because most of these women live in poverty and end up in the most poverty-stricken areas of urban centres causing even more risk to their families.

It is time to set the record straight on the Native Women's Association of Canada's position on matrimonial real property (MRP). I am frustrated when the media are blindly led to write clearly biased reports without getting all of the facts ("Proposed changes would boost women's property rights", Leader Post, April 24). Beginning in October 2006, the NWAC heard ideas, opinions and solutions from aboriginal women who have been directly impacted by the lack of legal recourse to the equal division of their matrimonial home on reserve. I was encouraged to learn about the resilience of the women we heard from. NWAC totally supports her report and, in fact, supports the fact that First Nations have a continued inherent right to their lands and territories. The aboriginal women with whom we consulted reiterated this as well.

European colonizers, who believed they had discovered the New World were unaware of the political, social, geographical and historical relationships of O:gweho:we who were already living in North America. One of the O:gweho:we nations that existed as a powerful force in North America was the Hodinohso:ni Confederacy, which already had its own governing customary laws provided to them by the Peacemaker. This thesis is intended to explain the traditional customary laws of the Hodinohso:ni in order to provide an analysis and comparison of Hodinohso:ni law with Eurocentric international law.

Beverly Jacobs is a Mohawk lawyer from Six Nations Grand River. She was a consultant to Amnesty International's report "Stolen Sisters: Discrimination and Violence Against Indigenous Women in Canada." She spoke in Fredericton, NB on October 21st, 2004

This report examines the role of discrimination in acts of violence carried out against Indigenous women in Canadian towns and cities. Discrimination takes the form both of overt cultural prejudice and of implicit or systemic biases in the policies and actions of government officials and agencies, or of society as a whole. Discrimination has played […]