5 stats we now know about Canada’s murdered and missing aboriginal women

The week began with a United Nations envoy calling out Canada for having a First Nations human-rights problem of “crisis proportions.”

It ended with the release of an RCMP report acknowledging a staggering number of aboriginal women are victims of violence in a country marred by inequality. The numbers in the report, released Friday, renewed calls for a public inquiry into Canada’s murdered and missing indigenous women.

Here are 5 key stats about the last three decades that sum up the injustice:

• 1,017 aboriginal women have been murdered; another 164 are still considered missing. This “exceeds previous public estimates.”
• The rate of homicide per 100,000 is 4.45 for aboriginal women compared to0.90 for non-aboriginal women.

• Aboriginal women account for 4.3% of the overall Canadian female population;

• But account for 11.3% of the cases of missing women;
  

• And represent 16% of female homicides.

This is what that looks like, courtesy of the RCMP report with stats thatsurprised the country’s top Mountie:

Photo: joshuatree. Used under a Creative Commons BY-SA 2.0 licence.