Yukon releases priority action items for MMIWG2S+ strategy

A Yukon group focused on missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit-plus people has released a document further detailing how it plans to address the issue in the territory. 

The Yukon Advisory Committee on MMIWG2S+ shared a document outlining 12 "priority action items" following a ceremony at the Haa Shagóon Hídi building in Carcross Tuesday morning. The priorities stem from the Yukon's larger MMIWG2S+ strategy, released in December 2020 in response to the final report of the National Inquiry a year prior. 

"These priorities represent the critical and timely work that signatories need to begin now to achieve the strategy's vision of healthy, safe and violence-free communities in the Yukon," said Jeanie McLean, an advisory committee co-chair and the minister responsible for the territorial women and gender equity directorate. 

"The document we are sharing today takes us another step forward on a long, challenging and vitally important journey."

The advisory committee had previously shared 10 of the 12 priorities listed in Tuesday's document, which include strengthening and improving sexual assault and violence response programs, land-based infrastructure and programming and safe housing. 

The two new priorities — engaging men and boys in ending violence against women and providing reliable, affordable and safe transportation and communication options — were added based on feedback from families and survivors. 

Liard Aboriginal Women's Society executive director Ann Maje Raider, who's another advisory committee co-chair, told reporters that women in rural communities have few options to get to Whitehorse, especially after the end of Greyhound bus service in the territory.

"We don't have any safe rides or any way that we can ensure our women are safe when they're needing to go to Whitehorse and it's too risky and dangerous for hitchhiking," she said of the new priority. 

"Down in B.C., the Highway of Tears, they have created that safe transportation and I'm hearing a lot of good feedback about that and what a difference it's making in saving our women's lives."

The Highway of Tears action plan is among the initiatives, studies and reports listed under the implementation considerations for transportation and communication priority. Each priority has a similar section noting existing efforts that could help shape the Yukon's response, as well as lists of key objectives, groups that could potentially lead the implementation, and implementation milestones ranging from one to 15 years. 

"It'll be generational work, that's the way I look at it," McLean said. 

"Some things can happen right away, some things will take generations to really, really see the full extent of what we're going to accomplish here." 

Maje Raider agreed, adding that while different communities and groups have already been doing work, the priorities of the MMIWG2S+ strategy overall was about getting everyone on the same page and working in unison. 

She also said that besides looking at the past, it was also important to look to the future. 

"We witness so much horrific violence to our Indigenous women and still today, as we talk and do this unveiling, a woman has gone missing or is murdered so, you know, there's urgency to do this work," she said. 

"And what do I want to see in 15 years? Wow, you know, the ending of violence against our Indigenous women. I don't want to see a tomorrow where it's our young grandchildren that are out calling for an end to violence."

Maje Raider said the advisory committee expects to release a full implementation plan for the Yukon's MMIWG2S+ strategy in the spring of 2023, followed by a second accountability forum with families and survivors.