Hundreds of people marched in the annual Women’s Memorial March on Tuesday.
The march, now in its 27th year, is honouring the memory of women who have died because of physical, mental and emotional violence on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
The procession began at Main and Hastings, stopping at sites where women died or were last seen to offer prayers.
Organizers say the Women’s Memorial March Committee has been a leading voice on the issue of violence against Indigenous women and has raised local, national and international attention to the issue since being founded in 1991.
They say despite a national inquiry being launched on missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, the reality on the ground in the Downtown Eastside has not changed.
The federal government outlined the terms of the national inquiry into missing and murdered Aboriginal women and girls last August.
The process is expected to last at least two years and cost nearly $54 million.
-With files from the Canadian Press