The first women’s memorial march was held in 1992 in response to the murder of a Coast Salish woman on Powell Street in Vancouver.
Her name is not spoken today out of respect for the wishes of her family.
Out of this sense of hopelessness and anger came an annual march on Valentine’s Day to express compassion, community, and caring for all women in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, Unceded Coast Salish Territories.
Every year the women’s memorial march continues to honour the lives of missing and murdered women and all women’s lives lost in the Downtown Eastside.
About
The Feb 14 Women’s Memorial March
Increasing deaths of many vulnerable women from the DTES still leaves family, friends, loved ones, and community members with an overwhelming sense of grief and loss.
Indigenous women disproportionately continue to go missing or be murdered with minimal to no action to address these tragedies or the systemic nature of gendered violence, poverty, racism, or colonialism.
This event is organized and led by women in the DTES because women – especially Indigenous women – face physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual violence on a daily basis.
The February 14th Women’s Memorial March is an opportunity to come together to grieve the loss of our beloved sisters, remember the women who are still missing, and to dedicate ourselves to justice.
