Who: UVic NSU and UVSS

What: Stolen Sisters Memorial March

Where: Our Place Society, Totem Park

When: Starts 11 a.m.

This Valentines Day won’t be about romance for some.

On Feb. 14, participants in Victoria’s second-annual Stolen Sisters Memorial March will walk in union with other marches across the country in memoriam of Canada’s missing and murdered women.

The UVic Native Student’s Union and the UVic Students’ Society created the event last year to join the crowds of people marching in Winnipeg, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton, Thunderbay, London, Sudbury and Vancouver in honour of the thousands of missing and murdered women across the country, and to support the families of those sisters, mothers and daughters.

“This isn’t just a problem of [Vancouver’s] Downtown Eastside,” said Trish Palichuk, who helped organize the event. “This affects people in Victoria, at UVic, across Canada and the world. The women who go missing include mothers, students, and women with full-time jobs.

“It doesn’t just affect the women who are gone, it leaves holes in families, communities and nations.”

Last Valentines Day between 300 and 400 people wearing red or regalia moved through Victoria’s streets banging drums and carrying signs, Palichuk said. She expects about 500 people to be involved in this year’s march, which has the support of the city and the police and doesn’t have an activist agenda.

Although the march is in memory of all the missing and murdered women in Canada, organizers recognize that an overwhelming number of those women are Aboriginal (First Nations, Inuit, Metis).

“Indigenous women are still going missing and are being murdered. If white women were disappearing at this rate society would be outraged,” said Palichuk. “Why are we not outraged that it is happening to Indigenous women?”

Much attention has been drawn to the affected Aboriginal women throughout the last few years with the introduction of the RCMP’s E-Pana Highway 16 investigative review in 2005, the formation of the Sisters in Spirit initiative in 2005, the conviction of Robert William Pickton in December 2007, and the creation of the Manitoba Integrated Task Force for Missing and Murdered Women in August 2009.

The Native Women’s Association of Canada formed the Sisters in Spirit initiative to address racialized and sexualized violence against Aboriginal women. They work with Aboriginal women’s groups and the federal government to conduct research, provide education and affect policy surrounding the human rights of Aboriginal women.

The initiative estimates more than 500 Canadian aboriginal women have gone missing or have been murdered. Out of all the provinces and territories, B.C. has the highest rates of missing or murdered Aboriginal women.

A contributing factor to these rates may be the significant number of missing or murdered Downtown Eastside sex-trade workers, who some groups say are over-represented by Aboriginal women. Former pig farmer Robert William Pickton was convicted of the murders of six prostitutes and charged in 20 other deaths. Many of the women were sex-trade workers from the Downtown Eastside.

Another possible link to B.C.’s high numbers is the women who went missing or whose bodies were found along Highway 16, a 700 km stretch of highway between Prince George and Prince Rupert, also dubbed the Highway of Tears. The EPANA division is dedicated to investigating 18 of those cases, but some groups say the number of missing or murdered women could be double that amount.

Last summer, police investigated a property just outside of Prince George in connection with the case of Nicole Hoar, who disappeared near the central B.C. town in 2002. The property was once owned by a convicted murderer. Police said that a former owner of the property was a person of interest, but they would not make an identitification.

Around that time, Manitoba announced the creation of the Manitoba Integrated Task Force for Missing and Murdered Women.

Palichuk said she hopes the march will inspire change.

“If everyone stood in solidarity and demanded the [government] make changes to end the violence — there would be change,” she said. “As allies, you have the power to speak out, you have the power to make a difference.”

Beginning at the Our Place Society, the Victoria Stolen Sisters Memorial march will proceed down Pandora to Government Street, and then down Government to Totem Park, where participants will be met with speeches and lunch.