{"id":69923,"date":"2017-02-08T07:29:26","date_gmt":"2017-02-08T07:29:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/women-and-girls-to-remain-primary-focus-of-mmiw-inquiry-commission-says-2.html"},"modified":"2017-02-08T07:29:26","modified_gmt":"2017-02-08T07:29:26","slug":"women-and-girls-to-remain-primary-focus-of-mmiw-inquiry-commission-says-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/political\/women-and-girls-to-remain-primary-focus-of-mmiw-inquiry-commission-says-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Women and girls to remain primary focus of MMIW inquiry, commission says"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Violence against women and girls will remain the primary focus of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, despite a push to expand their mandate, commissioners say.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/politics\/mmiw-commissioners-press-conference-1.3970205\"><strong>MMIW commissioners reassure families at 1st press conference<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8220;The national inquiry will stay focused on its mandate to inquire into and report on systemic forms of violence against Indigenous women and girls in Canada,&#8221; Susan Vella, the inquiry&#8217;s lead legal counsel, said Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>While Vella said that the inquiry will likely hear from men and boys, it&#8217;s only &#8220;to understand whether the circumstances they face have contributed to the vulnerabilities faced by Indigenous women and girls.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Vella made the comments in Ottawa when MMIW inquiry commissioners held their first news conference, months after the inquiry was launched in August 2016.<\/p>\n<h2>&#8216;Husbands, fathers, brothers&#8217;<\/h2>\n<p>Some critics, like B.C. Chief Ernie Crey, wanted the inquiry to do more to include men and boys.<\/p>\n<p> &#8220;A lot of the missing and murdered boys and men share a similar experience \u00a0[with girls and women] of being removed from their communities and being placed in non-Native homes,&#8221; he told CBC News Monday.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/RSSPoster_PRO\/cache\/f415b_ernie-crey.jpg\" alt=\"Ernie Crey\" width=\"100%\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"figure-caption\">B.C. Chief Ernie Crey was hopeful the inquiry would be expanded to include missing and murdered Indigenous men. (CBC)<\/p>\n<p>Crey\u00a0is part of a group called Expand the Inquiry that urged commissioners to change their mandate to focus on violence against all Indigenous people.<\/p>\n<p \/>\n<p>His sister Dawn went missing from Vancouver&#8217;s Downtown Eastside in December 2000. Her DNA was later found on convicted killer Robert Pickton&#8217;s farm.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/indigenous\/mmiw-inquiry-could-include-indigenous-men-and-boys-1.3961554\"><strong>Families, advocates divided over whether to expand inquiry<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/british-columbia\/case-of-denny-poole-renews-call-to-include-missing-men-in-mmiw-inquiry-1.3803915\"><strong>Renewed calls for MMIW inquiry to include missing men<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know if there&#8217;s room for it, with the timeline [the inquiry] must follow,&#8221; said Darlene Okemaysim-Sicotte, co-chair of Iskwewuk E-wichiwitochik (Women Walking Together), a support group for Saskatchewan families of missing and murdered Indigenous women.<\/p>\n<p>She welcomes the testimony of men and boys, but believes the mandate of the inquiry should remain focused on women and girls.<\/p>\n<p><span>&#8220;There&#8217;s families with husbands, fathers, brothers that are part of the missing and murdered experience,&#8221; she said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Violence against women and girls will remain the primary focus of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, despite a push to expand their mandate, commissioners say. MMIW commissioners reassure families at 1st press conference &#8220;The national inquiry will stay focused on its mandate to inquire into and report on systemic [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":69924,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[84],"class_list":["post-69923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political","tag-political"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69923\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}