Red Dress Day event in Regina highlights unanswered Calls for Justice

YWCA Regina marked Red Dress Day with ceremony and calls for urgent action on the National Inquiry’s MMIWG Calls for Justice. Jacob Carr reports.

Several Red Dress Day events were held across Saskatchewan Tuesday, including at the YWCA Regina.

Drum songs and jingle dancers were part of the event, which called for urgent and measurable action on the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls’ 231 Calls for Justice.

YWCA Regina senior director of decolonization and diversity, equity and inclusion Jessica Gordon said organizations serving Indigenous people have a responsibility to move beyond awareness.

“I think the YWCA as an organization that serves Indigenous people, women and families, [it] has an obligation to take action rather than just words,” Gordon said.

YWCA Regina CEO Melissa Coomber-Bendtsen said the organization has spent the past seven years raising awareness about missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and Two-Spirit people, but more work is still needed.

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“Sometimes if we talk about it, we feel that we’ve done enough or we feel like enough has been done because of our awareness campaigns,” she said.

“It’s about changing the mindset of people to understand how deep-rooted that situation is and how much that affects Indigenous women and girls every single day.”

Coomber-Bendtsen said people need to understand the trauma many Indigenous women and families continue to carry when interacting with institutions and community organizations.

Gordon said governments, police and justice systems must take further action on the Calls for Justice.

“We need to call upon the justice system, as well as the Regina Police Service, to implement action,” she said. “There’s so much more that we could do.”

According to organizers at the event, only two of the 231 Calls for Justice from the national inquiry have been fully implemented to date.