Red Dresses

On a recent trip to Canada's Vancouver Island, Peconic Bay member Mona Rowe saw red dresses hanging everywhere. She asked a local librarian and learned this: the red dresses call attention to missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.

According to a government study, between the years 1980 and 2012, Indigenous women and girls represented 16 percent of all female homicides in Canada, while constituting only 4 percent of the country's female population.

That's a pretty grim statistic.

The visual reminder of these red dresses is an opportunity for all of us to reflect on the problem. Awareness can lead to action to improve justice and equality under the law for Indigenous women and girls everywhere.