By Stephanie Froese

Cross-Canada walk stops in Saskatchewan

Jul 24, 2011 | 11:41 AM

Missing and murdered women and children is a serious problem that is happening right here in Canada, said the co-founder of Walk4Justice, a non-profit organization that walks across Canada to different communities to raise awareness of this issue.

“There’s a lot of grave injustices that are happening here, in regard to, especially the First Nations women where nothing seems to be done,” said Gladys Redek, co-founder of Walk4Justice.

“We have over 42,000 missing and murdered women across Canada.”

This was the organizations fifth walk since the movement started four years ago.

“We walked on the Highway of Tears, where my niece is missing, from Prince Rupert into Prince George for the Highway of Tears Symposium.”

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Redek said there was a lot of inaction after the symposium so they decided to walk across Canada to raise awareness.

“Our database has climbed from the 2,932 names that we gathered and gave to the prime minister in 2008 on our first walk. We walked from Vancouver to Ottawa.”

The group made a stop this weekend at the Back to Batoche Days, the annual Métis cultural festival.

Today, 15 walkers are leaving from Saskatoon for Winnipeg. The van that accompanies the group is covered with photos of missing and murdered women and children – they have 200 photos to add to what is already posted.

“When you put a face to the name it creates more awareness,” Redek explained, as a young girl and her mom walked around the van, wiping rain water off the photos.

They group will trek towards Ottawa and will rally on Parliament Hill on Sept.19.

“Were pushing for a national missing and murdered women’s public inquiry and were also pushing for a national missing and murdered women’s symposium,” she said.

Redek said the government is not doing everything it can do for this issue, but she added individual Canadians can step up too.

“When you hear about a woman that’s missing or a child that’s been missing or a man that’s been missing, please go out and help those families look for them. Help them get the closure that they need. Don’t just put your blinders on and pretend it’s not happening because these incidents are real.”

sfroese@panow.com