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Canada's Missing Women From 1964 To 1998 Essay

Canada's Missing Women From 1964 to 1998 Canada saw a severe increase in the amount of violent crimes against native women. During this time, hundreds of women went missing later to be discovered as victims of violent murders. This increase in victims is only reflected in the native Canadian peoples, which had led many justice studies specialists to determine the theories and implications of the violence and the reasons behind the violence.

The best theoretical perspective for explaining this phenomenon is one of dehumanization. During the 1960's the Canadian government began removing native children from their families and displacing them to foster homes and into government schools. The purpose was to assimilate the children into society in the attempt to remove their native culture. This created issues of isolation and segregation within the schools. As a result, many native children fell through the educational cracks and once old enough returned to their native reserves and the native way to life.

In order to further remove the native people from their land, the government began eliminating the native lifestyle by placing restrictions and requirements on practices such as fishing. This resulted in many native people moving to the cities in order to find work and support their families. Those natives moving to the cities were very poor and were forced...

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These poor conditions led to further problems including alcohol addiction, drug addiction, and prostitution for the natives. As time passed, natives became viewed by the public through the eyes of the media and other outlets as easy targets for crimes and a public nuisance.
This was further caused in the 1980's when the Canadian government began a movement to remove prostitution from the streets of their cities. Now, the native women who were working the streets were seen as a government and public nuisance. While unjust, this made the idea of committing crimes against this group seem easier and more inviting to those prone to such instincts.

This theory is further supported by the rise in violent crimes and missing women that happened between 1980 and 1998. During this time hundreds of native women began disappearing from the streets and highways. Those who were found dead, the victims of violent crimes. To proliferate the problem even further, those victim's attackers were typically not tried until years after the incident, if at all. So, through various means conducted by the government and society, native Canadians were dehumanized to a point that they became easy targets for attackers.

Democrative racism is the decisive manipulation of public opinion…

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In sum, a simple view of history and understanding of criminology come together to clearly illustrate this travesty of the Canadian government. Instead of protecting its citizens, the Canadian government made the decision to isolate and derogate a race to a sub-human level. This group, already being forced to place themselves in compromising situations obtained a stigma resulting in an increase in violent attacks and the ignoring of society, the media, and the government.

Blishen, Bernard; Carroll, William; Moore, Catherine (2008). "The 1981 Socioeconomic Index for Occupations in Canada." Canadian Review of Sociology. Volume 24.4 (465-88).

Lowman, John. (2000) "Violence and the Outlaw Status of (Street) Prostitution in Canada." Violence Against Women. Volume 6 (987-1011).
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