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Stop the violence, new women’s group pleads

Makivik endorses women’s resolution at AGM

JANE GEORGE

KANGIRSUK — End violence and start healing: that’s what Nunavik’s new women’s group wants Makivik Corp. to support.

“We, Inuit women of Nunavik, demand that violence directed against women and children must stop. Child sexual abuse is absolutely intolerable and must end. All types of violence, whether physical or psychological, against women and children must cease to occur,” reads part of the “Nunavik Inuit Women’s Manifesto,” which Lisa Koperqualuk and Mary Thomassie asked Makivik delegates to endorse with a resolution at their annual general meeting last week.

“That’s what Inuit women want to say to our leaders,” Koperqualuk said.

The pair said they’re part of a new group trying to re-establish the Nunavik Inuit Women’s Association under a new name and direction.

Thomassie told the meeting that the group will seek more official support for culture, language and education, and that they want to learn more about how elders dealt with violence in the past.

“Our elders used to deal with those problems right away. We want to know how they dealt with these problems,” Thomassie said.

The women also intend to follow up on other recommendations regarding violence, healing, parenting, sexual abuse, suicide, education and language that came out of a retreat held last August at the Tuaparat campsite near Puvirnituq.

Participants at the Qilalugaq Camp included women from every community in Nunavik as well as Québécois lawyers, academics and bureaucrats. At the four-day camp, the group drafted the manifesto and a long list of recommendations.

Among other actions, the recommendations call for:

• a training program for sexual abuse counselors;
• more legal support to single mothers seeking child support;
• mandatory parenting courses for parents whose children are under youth protection;
• the Kativik School Board to improve its educational standards and implement changes from the 1992 Silatunirmut Report.

“It is true that violence is very prevalent now and we have to find ways and possible solutions,” Pita Aatami, Makivik’s president, told Koperqualuk and Thomassie. “We’ve been supporting your endeavours as much as possible. We’ll be showing our support through a resolution.”

The women also plan to ask every municipal council in Nunavik to adopt a “zero tolerance resolution against violence.”

Martha Greig of Kuujjuaq, who is also the president of Pauktuutit, the national Inuit women’s association, urged men and women to work together to end violence.

“It’s a collective problem. Action needs to be taken because it’s really starting to affect the social fabric in Nunavik. It’s changing so much that it’s barely recognizable anymore,” said one delegate after the women’s presentation at the meeting.

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