Women's Memorial March facts for kids

The Women’s Memorial March is an annual event which occurs on February 14 in remembrance and in honour of the lives of missing and murdered indigenous women. This event is also a protest against class disparity, racism, inequality and violence. The event was originated and is held in Vancouver’s Downtown East Side. The March begins on the corner of Main and Hastings and proceeds through downtown, stopping where women’s bodies have been found. Each woman’s name is read along with who she is a daughter to, or a mother of before the family and supporters pause to grieve.

The Women's Memorial March stands for survival and resilience and symbolizes the reclamation of dignity that has been denied the most marginalized women in Canada. Another important role of this movement is the restoration of public discourses in media. To reshape certain labels, representations, categorizations, and stereotypes of Indigenous women in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside used to excuse ignorance and discrimination from the police and the public.

Origins of the March

On January 20, 1991, a woman, whose name is not spoken out of consideration for her family, was found murdered on Powell Street in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. On February 14, 1991, her mother Linda Ann Joe and family and several others gathered in that spot to grieve their loss. This grassroots event, started by Linda Ann Joe and other women living in this area, brought the community together to show compassion and recognition for all Indigenous women in the Downtown Eastside and to honour the missing and murdered.

The Women's Memorial March now draws thousands of people in Vancouver every year and has grown as a movement, spreading to other provinces in Canada. Many cities across Canada now stage similar events to honour and bring visibility to missing and murdered indigenous women in their communities.

Each year, Vancouver organizers have published a list of names of the women and girls who have been murdered or remain missing in the Downtown Eastside. In the time since the first march in 1992, more than 970 names have been added to this list with 75 new names from 2019 alone.

History in the Downtown Eastside

Vancouver's Downtown Eastside is one of Canadas poorest neighbourhoods. The Indigenous population makes up 2% of Vancouver as a whole and 10% of the Downtown Eastside. Despite the large numbers of missing and murdered women from this neighbourhood, Meghan Longstaffe says, "The historical processes that shaped this neighbourhood's social location and the experiences of the women and girls who lived there, however, remain poorly understood."

Vancouver's Eastside has historically been a destination for immigrant, working class families and migrant workers. In the 20th Century, this area was largely populated by loggers, miners, fishers, railway workers and other single male labourers who resided in cheap hotels and boarding rooms. Due to categorizations of this area as working class, and dominantly masculine, the Downtown Eastside was deemed, as Longstaffe writes, a zone of "immorality and physical decay."

In the 1950s, a rapid increase of Indigenous migrants began to join the Coast Salish peoples of British Columbia from across North America. This pivotal migration was due to various circumstances in northern and reserve communities concerning economic and social inequity and dislocation. As a result, many Indigenous men and women moved from reserve communities into city centres. The city provided better social and health services in cases of refuge from violence, employment opportunities and in some cases government-sponsored relocation programs.

These conditions were compounded by the provisions of colonial legislation. According to the Indian Act, for example, Indigenous women who married men who did not have legal Indian status were refused their own status, along with that of their "illegitimate" children's. Before 1985 when the Indian Act was amended, thousands of women without legal status lost their band membership and their right to live on reserves, and were forced to move to city centres.