Aboriginal Women Case Study

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Like what Justice Mclachlin mentioned above, it is clear that the government did not care much for their Aboriginal wellbeing and culture (Article). This mindset may also be shared amongst the police force as well as many missing aboriginal cases are often ignored as seen with the case of Daleen Kay Bosse (Video). However, despite criticisms placed on the police force for their lack of initiatives, according the Canada statistics, aboriginal women were equally as satisfied as their non-aboriginal women counterparts with the service of the police force (Brennan, 2011). Furthermore, within the same statistic, Mr. Brennan found out that Aboriginal women were generally comfortable with their safety and did not fear crime (2011). Lastly, when asked, …show more content…

They are often under-represented in the media despite them being over-represented in the criminal justice system (Gilchrist, 2010). This is because the media views them as lower rate citizens and since the media attempts to draw viewers, it has to present materials that are newsworthy (Gilchrist, 2010). What this means is that they have to consider to key points, spatial and cultural. Spatial is referring to the closeness of the offense so if the crime is occurring nearby, people will pay closer attention to it (Gilchrist, 2010). The other crucial requirement needed for a content to be newsworthy is "cultural proximity" (Gilchrist, 2010, p. 374) or in the other words, the victim 's views must be similar to those of the viewers (article). People normally care and react strongly to those who they can relate …show more content…

Since 1980, roughly 500 aboriginal have disappeared and many of them have been murdered yet they are rarely reported by the media (Gilchrist, 2010). Like mentioned above, the news media considers Aboriginal women to be lower tier than other races (Gilchrist, 2010). That may be why although significantly less common, reports of missing white women tend to be overly reported (Gilchrist, 2010). Furthermore, when a white woman goes missing, the media portrays them as innocent victims in order to elicit a stronger response from the viewers whereas aboriginal women, when they are reported as portrayed as invisible or often troubled people (Gilchrist, 2010).
The problem here is that should we blame the media for not representing these missing cases? The media is like any other business and as such it is perfectly normal for them to target news that will draw us viewers in. This shows that there is still some lingering racial and systematic discrimination against the aboriginals that stems all the way back to the European colonization

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