First Nations leaders are calling on the Canadian government to look into the cases of at least 582 Native women who have gone missing or have been murdered.

At its annual meeting last month, the Assembly of First Nations passed a resolution in favor of an independent commission to discuss violence against Native women and girls. Native leaders also want law enforcement authorities across Canada to look into the missing and murdered women.

"There’s a crisis in our land today and it has reached epidemic proportions,” Chief Garrison Settee of the Pimicikamak Cree Nation in Manitoba, said during AFN's meeting, the Inter Press Service reported. “It is alarming – it’s disheartening – that 600 missing women are still unaccounted for.”

Get the Story:
Where Are Canada’s Missing Native Women? (Inter Press Service 7/31)

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