EDMONTON - Now that the federal government has apologized for the havoc the residential school system wrought in the lives of generations of aboriginal people, the head of a national women's group says she's aiming to test whether that apology was at all sincere.
Beverley Jacobs, president of the Native Women's Association of Canada, will co-host the second annual National Aboriginal Women's Summit, a three-day meeting which begins Tuesday in Yellowknife.
Floyd Roland, the premier of the Northwest Territories, is also co-hosting the event.
About 150 delegates will hash out an action plan to implement more than 140 recommendations on a wide range of issues -- such as poverty, violence and justice -- that came out of last year's inaugural meeting in Cornerbrook, N.L.
There's been a lot of talk about making the lives of aboriginal people better, said Jacobs, but now it's time to see if Prime Minister Stephen Harper really means that.
"I don't want to hear about another missing woman, I don't want to hear about another murdered woman. I don't want to hear about a woman who doesn't have a home to live in.
"That's the change I want to see,'' said Jacobs, a Mohawk citizen of the Six Nations of the Grand River Territory in southern Ontario.
There was optimism among aboriginal women's groups when, for the first time, they had a seat at the table when the $5-billion Kelowna Accord was being discussed.
It called for spending on programs to improve the quality of life of aboriginal people, and received support from all provinces and territories.
But Kory Teneycke, spokesman for the Prime Minister's Office, has said he doesn't expect the government to move forward on that anytime soon.
The aboriginal women's summit provides a platform to try to get the federal government's attention on issues, but there's no way to know whether it's falling on deaf ears, Jacobs said.
"I think the frustrating part of all of this is we're not sure whether we're being heard. We can keep talking and talking ... but there has to be some action, some acknowledgment that they are listening.''
And there are certainly many unique issues facing aboriginal women that governments have only barely begun to deal with, some groups say, like the trafficking of young aboriginal girls in the sex trade.
A study released last year suggested aboriginal girls as young as nine are working as prostitutes.
"There's a myth that somehow aboriginal women are either born into or consent to be in the sex trade,'' said Jo-Ann Daniels, a policy analyst for the Institute for the Advancement of Aboriginal Women in Edmonton.
"The government does not even recognize the domestic human trafficking of aboriginal girls. There are no services (specifically) available to the trafficked girl.''
The study, presented last year in the child welfare journal First Peoples Child and Family Review, noted that while few statistics were available on the subject, young aboriginal girls were "overrepresented in prostitution.''
For instance, in Vancouver aboriginal girls represented 60 per cent of all those who were being sexually exploited.
In Saskatoon, the study found, the average age for aboriginal girls working as prostitutes was between 11 and 12.
Earlier this year, Muriel Stanley Venne, a member of the Order of Canada and a pioneer advocate of aboriginal women's rights in Alberta, sent a letter to federal cabinet ministers to propose the establishment of an aboriginal women's commission.
She said in the letter that it had become clear to her after many years of advocacy work that aboriginal women live in a "society that is hostile to their very existence,'' and needed a special commission to make concrete changes to issues like child welfare, violence against women and employment.
"I was basically brushed off,'' she said.
Venne, the president and founder of the Institute for the Advancement of Aboriginal Women in Edmonton, said the current system of supports for aboriginal women has worked to humiliate them, rather than help.
It has forced aboriginal women to beg for enough money to keep their families together, and when they finally give up in defeat, the government coffers suddenly open, Venne said.
"Finally, she gives up and then the money flows. Then there is anywhere from $50 to $150 per day, per child to raise that child in a foster home,'' she said as she pounded a table in frustration during a recent interview.
Earlier this month -- buoyed by a meeting between provincial and territorial leaders and native leaders in Quebec City -- Quebec Premier Jean Charest called for a meeting with Harper to address concerns over the future of aboriginal children.
He said they hoped to build on the momentum created by the federal government's residential school apology.
