For years, communities have pointed to the high number of missing and murdered Aboriginal women and girls in Canada. As of March 31, 2010, Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC) has gathered information about 582 cases from across the country.
Aboriginal women face life-threatening, gender-based violence, and disproportionately experience violent crimes because of hatred and racism. According to Statistics Canada’s 2004 General Social Survey (GSS), Aboriginal women experience much higher rates of violence than non-Aboriginal women. Statistics Canada reported the following findings:
Aboriginal women 15 years and older are 3.5 times more likely to experience violence than non-Aboriginal women.
Rates of spousal assault against Aboriginal women are more than three times higher than those against non-Aboriginal women.
Nearly one-quarter of Aboriginal women experienced some form of spousal violence in the five years preceding the 2004 GSS.
Statistics Canada reported that Aboriginal women are more likely to experience more severe and potentially life-threatening forms of family violence than non- Aboriginal women.
54% of Aboriginal women reported severe forms of family violence, such as being beaten, being choked, having had a gun or knife used against them, or being sexually assaulted, versus 37% of non-Aboriginal women
44% of Aboriginal women reported “fearing for their lives” when faced with severe forms of family violence, compared with 33% of non-Aboriginal women.
27% of Aboriginal women reported experiencing 10 or more assaults by the same offender, as opposed to 18% of non-Aboriginal women.
While the number of non-Aboriginal women reporting the most severe forms of violence declined from 43% in 1999 to 37% in 2004 the number of similar attacks against Aboriginal women remained unchanged at 54% during the same time period.
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Kali J Desautels 
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