"One of the agenda items at the just concluded UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues was “Combating violence against Indigenous Women and Girls.” The title was a bit counter-productive, using a violent word like “combating” to end violence. A better word would have been “eliminating.”

Other than that, the session dealt with a very important and saddening reality. Participants heard a litany of examples of how Indigenous women and girls globally are victims of violence from spousal abuse to forced prostitution to rape and murder. And the perpetrators ranged from family members, husbands, neighbors, strangers, clergy, industry, government officials, police and the military.

But one statistic that struck me was a study that concluded that 80 per cent of violence against Indigenous women and girls is perpetrated by non-Indigenous people and 20 per cent by Indigenous."

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Kenneth Deer: The Role of Indigenous Men in Ending Violence Against Women (Indian Country Today 5/24)