On Oct. 8 St. Thomas University’s Perspectives on Missing Persons criminology class took part in a discussion to raise awareness about Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG+).
Brian Gallagher is an advocate for MMIWG+ from Saskatoon who participated in the discussion. He shared that the beginning of his path to advocate for Indigenous women was when his daughter, Megan Gallagher, went missing in Sept. 2020.
In Jan. 2021, the case was deemed a homicide. On Sept. 29, 2022, the family was informed that Megan’s body had been found.
“We’re luckier than many families. With law enforcement, we were able to charge people,” said Gallagher.
Over the past four years, Gallagher and his family have learned about the relevance of raising awareness about MMIWG+.
He shared his grief and the importance of overcoming systematic issues with Professor Josephine Savarese’s class.
“If you are an Indigenous woman in Canada, you are 12 times more likely to go missing than a non-Indigenous woman,” said Gallagher. “There’s a hierarchy in spirit, in a society where some lives are considered less valuable than others and I feel that at the bottom of that hierarchy is Indigenous people.”
According to The National Centre for Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains, 12 per cent of all missing adults in Canada were Indigenous in 2023. Of those missing adults 58 per cent were female. Of missing youth in Canada, 23 per cent were Indigenous, 70 per cent of which were female.
In the 2021 Canadian census, 5 per cent of Canadas total population identify as Indigenous.
Emma Gallop, a high school teacher and student in the course attended the discussion. She talked about how relevant she thought it was to teach her high school students about this issue.
“Because you are a marginalized individual, you can face such different challenges and be so much more susceptible just because of the culture that you were born into,” said Gallop.
She said that this topic is critical for people to know about. She wants to give her students the opportunity to learn more about MMIWG+.
“This is an issue that I feel deeply about. I want to address it and be a part of the solution,” said Gallop.
Madeleine Hulten an exchange student from Sweden, shared her thoughts about MMIWG+ in Canadian society following the discussion.
“It is really heartbreaking, especially what Brian said about his whole family story,” she said. “It feels like their family was kind of lucky to be able to get some sort of closure with finding the remains and being able to go through a court case.”
Hulten was surprised to learn the statistics of this issue.
“From what [Gallagher] said, it sounds like 90 per cent of the families of missing Indigenous women never get an answer of what happened,” said Hulten. “I feel like just raising awareness about it will do a lot, but I don’t know if one family doing things and trying to work for it is going to be enough to actually cure the problem.”
In homicides reported by the police in 2021, 29 per cent of cases remained unsolved where the victim was an Indigenous woman compared to 17 per cent of where the victim was non-Indigenous, according to Statistics Canada.
The students agreed this problem can only start bringing solutions once people recognize this is a serious issue affecting the health and well-being of families across the country.
