Loss

I watched a bit og a programme recently. 'Stacey Dooley Investigates Canadas Lost Girls. Stacey went to make a documentary on the disapearance of indigineneus women. There is a strecth of road dubbed Tge Highway of Tears because dozens of women have vanished or been murdered while hitchhiking on this stretch of road since the 1980's. Mostly there seems to have been issues investigating and little prosecution.

 One man Robert Pickton was was convited of murdering 6 women but confessed to his cellmate (an undercover cop) he had killed 49 and would have like to make it an even 50 but got 'sloppy'. He had a pig farm which was used more for parties to raise funds supposedly for worthy causes. One woman escaped after he stabbed and handcuffed her. She managed to stab him in self defence. They were both treated in the same hospital and a key from his pocket was used to open the handcufss. As she had a drug addiction problem she wasnt taken seriously and he wasn't convicted. His clothes from that night remained in police custody for the next 7 years. This was in 1998 and in 2004 DNA was eventually found on them from two other women. From 1998 a farm worker noticed the women who came to the farm disapeared. The police recieived a tip off that there were human remains in the freezers. The police eventually interviewed him about the missing women.They also got his permission to search the farm but it never went ahead.In 2006 he was charged with 27 counts of murder as many of the reamains couldn't be identified. He was supposed to have fed them to the pigs, mixed them with pork mince and possible given some as gifts to the police.
It was any families can only assume he killed their loved ones as there are no bodies for them to identify.Stacey asked if people thought it was because they weren't blond, blue eyed and white that the issue wasn't taken more seriously.
She spoke to a taxi driver. The woman said that the idigenous people's self esteem was bad but you know they should just get a job, not always have the hand out. She also said she asked most people for payment upfront. When Satcey pointed out that she hadn't asked them for money she shrugged. Stacey also said that the indigenious people had been there first .The taxi driver  replied in other countries the indigenious people had to shape up or else. She shrugged some more when Stacey suggested this was racist.She spoke also of them self medicating though drugs and alcohol
Stacey mentioned Residential schools where First Nations children had to attend. Often located far from their family with passes to see them being scarce. It was designed to get the children to move away from their culture and learn English. Many suffered abuse and on return weren't accepted by as they didn't belong to either culture.
It was so sad and has some reflections of what happened in Industrial Schools in Ireland.They were both goverment funded , generally run by religious organisations , supposedly for the welfare of children.
For some reason I thought of this quote by the author of The Wizard of OZ. Tony Robbins read it out on one of his history programmes.I had to google it to get the exact wording .'Having wronged them for centuries we had better , in order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untameable creatures from the face of the earth'