Canada: Highway of Tears

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Highway 16, sometimes referred to as “the Highway of Tears” in recognition of the women and girls who have gone missing or been murdered in its vicinity, in northern British Columbia. July 2012. © 2012 Samer Muscati/Human Rights Watch 377081
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In northern British Columbia, a highway sign warns girls of the dangers of hitchhiking along the Highway of Tears. July 2012. © 2012 Samer Muscati/Human Rights Watch 377081
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Two unidentified women hitchhike in northern British Columbia. July 2012. © 2012 Samer Muscati/Human Rights Watch 377081
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A woman shows a paper she has kept displaying the photos of women, some of whom she knew, who disappeared from the downtown eastside of Vancouver, British Columbia, in the 1990s. July 2012. © 2012 Samer Muscati/Human Rights Watch 377081
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A woman wears a T-shirt with a slogan about police brutality in Prince George, British Columbia. In ten towns across northern British Columbia, Human Rights Watch documented failures in policing and protection of indigenous women and girls. July 2012. © 2012 Samer Muscati/Human Rights Watch 377081
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Photographs of a17-year old girl’s injuries after a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police handcuffed and repeatedly punched her in British Columbia in 2011. July 2012. © 2012 Samer Muscati/Human Rights Watch 377081
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Dog bite wounds are shown on the left leg of a 12-year old girl who was attacked by a police dog in 2012 when police searched for and arrested her after she was reported to have sprayed someone with bear mace. [Photos provided by the girl’s mother to Human Rights Watch for publication.] © 2012 Samer Muscati/Human Rights Watch 377081
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At a community center in Prince George, BC, Georgia I. (a pseudonym) said that she was raped by a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police almost 40 years ago as a 16-year old returning home from a pizza parlor. “I’m looking at filing an application to the Attorney General about the rape. He [the perpetrator] is still on the force…how many other young girls has he hurt, as he hurt me?” July 2012. © 2012 Samer Muscati/Human Rights Watch 377081
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A community worker in a northern British Columbia town holds underwear that she distributes to women on the street, some of whom reported to her having been raped by police and having their underwear taken. August 2012. © 2012 Meghan Rhoad/Human Rights Watch 377081
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A swing set stands on the former grounds of the Lejac Residential School, one of the compulsory boarding schools for indigenous children that operated until 1976 and a site of reported sexual and physical abuse. July 2012. © 2012 Samer Muscati/Human Rights Watch 377081
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A woman from Haida Gwaii said police detained her as a child in Prince Rupert and then shipped her to Port Alberni residential school where she survived physical and sexual abuse. “The cops took me right off the streets ... I was walking home ... I always remember, it was 5 after 9…. The cops grabbed me, threw me in their car. Grabbed me by the hair, threw me into their cell, and I was in there for about three days, almost got raped by a couple of ladies…. This was in the 50s. I got shipped to Port Alberni then.” July 2012. © 2012 Samer Muscati/Human Rights Watch 377081
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A photo hangs in Phoenix House, a women’s crisis shelter in Prince George, British Columbia, honoring Celynn Cadieux. Cadieux, now deceased, spoke out against the child sexual exploitation she and others experienced by provincial court judge David Ramsay, who died in jail after pleading guilty in 2004 to sexual assault, breach of trust, and buying sex from a minor. July 2012. © 2012 Samer Muscati/Human Rights Watch 377081
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The Tachie reserve in northern British Columbia. In Carrier, the indigenous language in Tachie and many indigenous communities in northern BC, the literal translation of the word for police is “those who take us away.” An RCMP report on the historical involvement of the police in Canada’s residential school system found that “The police were not perceived as a source for help but rather as an authority figure who takes members of the community away from the reserve or makes arrests for wrong-doing.” © 2012 Samer Muscati/Human Rights Watch 377081
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Mabel Jack holds up a photograph of her son and his family who have been missing since 1989. “I want everyone to know what happened to my family…. I still miss them. Some people—friends—they ask me how I am. I said, "I’m okay, but I’m not ... I hurt more than anybody else." July 2012. © 2012 Samer Muscati/Human Rights Watch 377081
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In Terrace, British Columbia, a woman discusses how police told her it was “too early” for them to do anything when she reported that her grandniece (whom she considers her granddaughter) had been missing for 14 hours. She said she told the police: “There are enough girls missing out there already, I want to know where my granddaughter is.” July 2012. © 2012 Samer Muscati/Human Rights Watch 377081
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Community members participate in a spirit healing walk in Burns Lake, British Columbia, in remembrance of missing and murdered women. July 2012. © 2012 Samer Muscati/Human Rights Watch 377081
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The memorial stone for the Downtown Eastside’s missing and murdered women located in Crab Park, Vancouver. The stone reads: “The heart has its own memory, dedicated July 29 2007. In honor of the spirit of the people murdered in the Downtown Eastside. Many were women and many were Native aboriginal women. Many of these cases remain unsolved. All my relations.” December 2012. © 2012 Samer Muscati/Human Rights Watch 377081
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in northern British Columbia has failed to protect indigenous women and girls from violence, adding to longstanding tensions between the RCMP and indigenous communities in the region. Women and girls Human Rights Watch interviewed also described abusive treatment by police officers, including ‪use of force against girls, strip searches of women by male officers, and physical and sexual abuse. Women who call the police for help have been blamed for the abuse, shamed over alcohol or substance use, and have found themselves at risk of arrest for actions taken in self-defense. Human Rights Watch conducted research along Highway 97 and along Highway 16 that has become infamous for the dozens of women and girls who have been reported missing or were found dead in its vicinity since the late 1960s.‬ The Canadian government should establish a national commission of inquiry into the murders and disappearances, including the impact of police mistreatment on their vulnerability to violence in communities along Highway 16, which has come to be called northern British Columbia’s “Highway of Tears.”
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