[The Highway of Tears. Map Source: Google Search.]

Please help us find who’s out there. Help us put a stop to the Highway of Tears.

~~Indigenous Arts & Stories

He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.

~~Jessica McDiarmid, Highway of Tears

I’ve driven Highway 16 several times. It’s a beautiful stretch of road in British Columbia, Canada that links Prince George, an interior city, with Prince Rupert, a major coastal port. I was on my way, or returning from, my summer job on the Juneau Icefield, near the city Juneau.

Yes, it was quite interesting to look at the beautiful Temperate Rainforest. But I didn’t know then what I know now. That, in all likelihood, I was driving past bodies in shallow graves.

Highway 16 is not referred to as the Highway of Tears without reason. Since 1970, over 80 people (mostly woman) have gone missing along the road.

Allow me to get personal here. The more articles I read, and podcasts I listen to, the more I’ve become aware of how women have been targeted. A war is being waged against the female gender. From the inglorious efforts by the federal government, in the halls of Congress, that has taken on the job of telling women what they can and cannot do (the end of Roe v. Wade) to the rampant domestic violence that takes place behind closed doors of apartments and homes across the continent, women are being attacked. This battle cuts across socioeconomic lines. The wealthy and the disadvantaged are all at risk of losing their rights and even their lives..

But, I want to narrow my focus on the women who are the most vulnerable. A high percentage of the missing people along Highway 16 are women. And, at the top of the list is Indigenous women. Many of them are prostitutes, addicts, homeless and poor. Unfortunately, some in the law enforcement community consider this population as expendable.

“They chose a high-risk life-style…they should make better choices.”

“No one is going to miss them.”

A kind of “perfect storm” of conditions exists in this part of B.C.:

-It’s isolated.

-The soil is soft making it easy to dig a grave.

-Hitchhiking is very often the only means to travel along the highway.

-The long-time indifference of the RCMP to take meaningful action.

Fortunately, the last of these points is beginning to be addressed by the Canadian law enforcement agencies. The existence of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) has been important in bringing the dreadful statistics to the eye of the public.

There are countless individuals who mourn these victims, husbands, parents, children, friends and extended families.

The killings won’t stop until a new mindset takes hold in the male psyche.

According to the MMIW, on average, more that 5,000 Native American and Alaskan Native women go missing EVERY YEAR.

This statistic puts things in true perspective.