Not another statistic – Indigenous women lead self-defense across the country – National Observer
Five women have gone missing in Lisa Kenoras’ community in the past five years.
Kenoras, a 25-year-old woman from the Secwepemc Nation, said that she could have easily become “one more missing Indigenous woman” while working in man-camps across Alberta and British Columbia or during a long-term abusive relationship.
Kenoras was raised in a community of 6,000 people on unceded Secwepemc land in the Shuswap-North Okanagan region of B.C. Five women, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, have gone missing in her community in the past five years. They include Caitlin Potts; Ashley Simpson; Nicole Bell; Deanna Wertz; and Traci Genereaux, an 18-year-old whose remains were found by police in 2017.
“I feel like there were many instances where my ancestors were protecting me,” Kenoras said in an interview after the workshop at Open Space art gallery in Victoria on Febuary 17th. “I could have been that missing woman — I would have been just another missing woman in a camp, or just another young Indigenous girl beat up by her boyfriend.”
