The Yukon Advisory Committee (YAC) on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-spirit+ People has released Priority Action Items for Changing the Story to Upholding Dignity and Justice: Yukon’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-spirit+ People (MMIWG2S+) Strategy.
This document builds on what the committee learned from partners, families and Survivors at the May 2022 MMIWG2S+ Accountability Forum. It also offers guidance to the many Yukon governments and organizations that signed on to the strategy as they begin work together on the most pressing priorities before the committee releases the strategy’s full joint implementation plan in 2023.
Today’s release adds two additional priority action items to the ten priorities announced at the forum. These two new items are in direct response to what the committee heard from families and Survivors at the forum. They include transportation and communications, and engaging men and boys in ending violence against women.
The document also identifies concrete objectives, organizational leads, milestones and considerations for the strategy’s 12 priority action items. These additional details will guide signatories in their work on the strategy’s action items while also providing clear deliverables to monitor the strategy’s progress and ensure accountability.
Yukon’s MMIWG2S+ strategy has a clear vision: healthy, safe and violence-free communities where Indigenous women, girls and Two-spirit+ Yukoners are respected, inherently valued, and treated equitably with dignity and justice. To make this vision real, we must also be clear on how we will achieve it. This priorities document will guide the strategy’s signatories on the best path forward.
One of the principles of this difficult but necessary work is inclusivity and interconnection, recognizing that it will take coordinated efforts to implement this strategy. I am grateful for the contributions of families and Survivors throughout this process. Their insights at the Accountability Forum can be seen throughout the document we released today and will also be seen in the full joint implementation plan that the Yukon Advisory Committee on MMIWG2S+ will release in 2023. Thank you for your continued bravery, wisdom and trust.
I am filled with hope today, as the work the Yukon Advisory Committee has done since the forum takes further shape and we are able to share essential details on the priority action items we first identified in May. The strategy’s signatories now have additional guidance on how to work together on implementing its most pressing items in a timely way, guided by the courageous families, Survivors and advocates.
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The objectives released in today’s document are specific actions that support achieving the strategy’s broader priority items.
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Each objective has an implementation lead. These leads are organizations who signed the Yukon MMIWG2S+ Strategy in 2020 and who the committee believes are in the best position to spearhead a specific objective or work with partners to accomplish an objective.
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These milestones and timelines will help the committee measure progress on the strategy’s objectives and support accountability.
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These considerations offer additional guidance and information about related work underway and relevant research or reports that partners and contributors can reference in the years to come.
The release of today’s priority action items document represents significant work by multiple partners across many levels of government over many years to generate long-term systemic change. Below is a brief timeline summary.
- The committee was created in the spring of 2015 to guide and support the first Yukon Regional Roundtable for the National Inquiry on MMIWG2S+ and to connect the work of the National Inquiry in Yukon to families of MMIWG2S+ and Indigenous Survivors, experts, and communities.
- The National Inquiry on MMIWG2S+ released its final report on June 3, 2019.
- In response to the National Inquiry’s Final Report, and in partnership with many Yukon organizations as well as families of MMIWG2S+ people and Survivors, the committee released Yukon’s MMIWG2S+ Strategy in December 2020. The Yukon was the first jurisdiction to release a strategy in response to Reclaiming Power and Place: The Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. Delegates from all 14 Yukon First Nations, federal, territorial and municipal governments signed a declaration to end violence against Indigenous women, girls and Two-spirit+ people and committed to work together to implement the strategy.
- In May 2022, the committee hosted the first Accountability Forum, bringing signatories together with family members and Survivors. At the forum, the committee released ten priorities from the strategy, representing the critical and timely work needed to begin immediately.
- The priority action items document, released today, adds two more priorities to what the committee released at the forum. It also provides further details on how to achieve these priorities, including objectives, implementation leads, milestones, timelines and additional considerations.
- As work begins in the priority areas, the committee will complete a comprehensive joint implementation plan. This comprehensive plan will provide details for all of the strategy’s 31 action items. This is expected in 2023 and will be followed by a second Accountability Forum.
- The committee is co-chaired by the Minister responsible for the Women and Gender Equity Directorate Jeanie McLean, representing Government of Yukon; Chief of the Kwanlin Dün First Nation Doris Bill, representing Yukon First Nations; and Executive Director of the Liard Aboriginal Women’s Society Ann Maje Raider, representing Indigenous women’s organizations. It also includes representatives from all three Yukon Indigenous women’s organizations, family members and Survivors.
Renée Francoeur
Cabinet Communications
867-334-9194
renee.francoeur@yukon.ca
Hillary Aitken
Director, Women and Gender Equity Directorate
867-332-4908
hillary.aitken@yukon.ca