PRINCE GEORGE – If you’re driving on Highway 16 west, you may notice a new billboard.
It was put up last week and is an extension of the Moose Hide Campaign, which is approaching its tenth year.
The Moose Hide campaign was started by Paul Lacerte and his daughter Raven while moose hunting just off the highway in response to the number of women who have gone missing along Highway 16, otherwise called the Highway of Tears.
“We were cleaning up the moose and we had been talking about, this idea of the Highway of Tears and how crazy it is. And I have four visibly Indigenous daughters and I was ‘Geez, I really don’t want that to happen to them.’ So what can we do?” explains Paul Lacerte.
The campaign simply involves men wearing a small square piece of moose hide on their lapels to say to the world they are opposed to violence against women and girls.
It is a campaign that Barb Ward-Burkitt, Executive Director of the Prince George Native Friendship Centre, has been part of from the start.
“I brought the Prince George Native Centre into it as a champion of the Moose Hide Campaign,” explains Ward-Burkitt. “Really encouraging men to stand up for ending violence against women and girls.”
In fact, according to Statistics Canada, Indigenous women are six times more likely to be killed than non-Indigenous women. And the incidence of domestic violence has risen dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Along with the global pandemic, there’s a shadow pandemic as well. And that really means that there’s been increased violence towards women and children during this period of time,” says Ward-Burkitt. “And, in fact, in March and April of this year, when the pandemic first started, federal consultations cited that there was a 20% – 30% increase.”
There will be a national fast on February 11th in hopes of reinforcing the message to end the violence.
