Calgary marchers protest killings of aboriginal women

Militant/Katy LeRougetel

CALGARY, Alberta — “We’re not going to rest till we see justice for Jackie,” Sandra Manyfeathers, sister of Jackie Crazybull, who was killed here in 2007, told 40 marchers Oct. 17. “We are here for all the missing and murdered aboriginal women, for the missing and murdered aboriginal youth. We pray for everyone, not only aboriginal but non-aboriginal, too.”

Crazybull was one of five people randomly stabbed over the course of an hour by three men July 11, 2007. Every year protesters gather for a Justice for Jackie action to demand the police find her killers.

Between 1980 and 2012 there were well over 1,000 missing and murdered aboriginal women in Canada, a homicide rate some 4.5 times higher than that for all other women in the country. The federal government in Ottawa has refused to honor calls for a national inquiry.

“This happens to many people, but there’s not always an action,” Smokey Littlelight, Crazybull’s nephew, told the Militant. “It’s beautiful when we get together to show that she wasn’t a nobody.”

— KATY LEROUGETEL