Skip to content

Editorial: Haunting red dresses the first step

Here was a graphic representation of loss, tragedy and mystery.
10621483_web1_180214-CCI-M-red-dresses-hi-rez-1
Red dresses fluttering in the breeze were a haunting sight Saturday in Charles Hoey Park in Duncan. (Lexi Bainas/Citizen)

Fluttering in the breeze, flashes of red grabbed the eye and wouldn’t let go at Charles Hoey Park in Duncan on Saturday.

Closer examination revealed to the viewer red dresses of all sizes and shapes suspended from the barren February tree branches. It was a disquieting image.

Without arms, legs, faces and life filling them, the dresses presented a haunting tableau. Here was a graphic representation of loss, tragedy and mystery. Fittingly, here, too, was the faceless anonymity that has for too long hidden away the problem of Canada’s missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls and marred any quest for justice in the violence that disproportionately affects them. You must first see them before you can go about fixing the problem.

This was not Cowichan’s first installation of the REDress Project. Our community certainly isn’t immune to the larger problems facing Indigenous people in this country.

And nobody seems as vulnerable as women. Though Indigenous women make up four per cent of Canada’s female population, Kendra Thomas reminded us in her article before the event, 16 per cent of all women murdered in the country between 1980 and 2012 were Indigenous.

Another tragic statistic: In 2014 RCMP identified 1,181 missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.

As the REDress Project hung in the park, Cowichan Tribes hosted their 1st Annual Walk for Missing and Murdered Men, Women and Children. A big crowd turned out for this inaugural event, again showing just how many people, right here in the Cowichan Valley, are affected by this ongoing problem.

Making it visible, acknowledging it is there, is just the first step.

The next steps are many and complicated. But we must put one foot in front of the other and keep moving.