Community comes together to mark Red Dress Day at Fort St. John events

By Ed Hitchins, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Energeticcity.ca FORT ST. JOHN, B.C. — Although the crowd was small, the message about the “genocide” of Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) rang loudly during a lunchtime walk at Fort St. John’s Festival Plaza. They walked in multi-coloured ribbon skirts and wore beaded earrings and red hoodies to honour their loved ones during the Red Dress Day walk on May 5th. First observed in 2010, Red Dress Day honours MMIWG in what is seen by some as a “genocidal” problem in Canada. Data from Statistics Canada shows six times more Indigenous women were murdered or missing between 2009 and 2021 versus non-Indigenous women. The information is more alarming considering Indigenous women make up just four per cent of the total…

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