Red dresses reminder of murdered, missing women

Red dresses were hung as high as they could go just off Happy Valley-Goose Bay's main drag Friday afternoonso they could be visible to people driving by.

It really has a haunting effect. It's really very powerful.-milieAngers

The annual event raises awareness about missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada.

"We're trying to reach the highest branches of the tree because this year the snow banks are so high," said milie Angers, program co-ordinator at the MokamiWomen's Centre.

"It has a really major impact when you drive around town and you see those red dresses. It really has a haunting effect. It's really very powerful."

The dresses hanging in Happy Valley-Goose Bay aim to recreate an artproject started by Jamie Black, a Mtis artist in Winnipeg, in 2010.

She collected red dresses and hung them in trees and other places around the city in the hopes of"drawing attention to the gendered andracializednature of violent crimes against Aboriginal women and to evoke a presence through the marking of absence."

Red dresses in Happy Valley-Goose Bay are a dramatic reminder of missing and murdered women

7 years ago

Duration 1:15

Red dresses hang as a reminder of missing and murdered women.

More than1,000 indigenous women went missing and murdered across Canada over the past 30 years, though some believe there are many more undocumented cases.

"We are here today to show that these women will not be forgotten or ignored any more," Angers said.

Joanna Anderson and many others

In all, 70 dresses were collected for the Labrador project.

Evelyn Winters hung one of them for Joanna Anderson, her sister-in-law's mother from Nainwho she saidwas murderedover 30 years ago. It's still not known who killed her.

"It was an honour to hang a dress up for her, in her memory," Winters said.

"It's a remembrance. You remember her and her ways."

Winters said Anderson helped form the women's group in Nain in the 1970s,she was well known for being a midwife and traditional healer.

"She helped a lot of people in the community homeless people or people who needed help," Winters said.

"It was nice to honour her because she was so involved in our community."