Nobody Listened

Portraits of resilience: I traveled across Saskatchewan to document Indigenous women whose loved ones have disappeared or died. Over 50 percent of missing and murdered women and girls are Indigenous in Saskatchewan, one of the highest rates in Canada.

On September 25, 2013, in Regina, Saskatchewan, Kelly Goforth’s body was found, inside a hockey bag, at the bottom of a dumpster. Goforth’s killer, a white male, also killed Richele Bear, another Indigenous woman. Goforth’s family believes he may have murdered others.

Goforth’s death is not an isolated incident in Saskatchewan, one of many areas in North America struggling with a shameful record of abuse, neglect, and indifference toward its Indigenous women and populations.

Indigenous communities in North American experience high levels of poverty and are plagued by addiction, family breakdown, and some of the highest suicide rates in the world. Women and girls, though, continue to face the brunt of a systemic racism prevalent throughout the region: the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) estimated that between 1980 and 2012, around 1,200 Indigenous women were murdered or went missing. The Native Women’s Association of Canada argues that these numbers could be higher than 4,000. Meanwhile, in the United States, missing persons statistics exist for every other demographic except for Native American women, who, according to the New York Times, are ten times more likely to be murdered than other Americans.

“Growing up as an Indigenous girl on the Prairies, you know you’re not safe. As a teenager, being followed, having white men approach you, there’s that fear. You know how you’re valued in society,” Jessica LaPlante told me. She has had two family members go missing.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised an independent inquiry into the issue during his campaign in 2015. Hope was short lived. The process, met with high profile resignations, delays, and controversy, has only served to open old wounds and highlight the injustices that persist among Indigenous communities. Unlike in Canada, where there has been some acknowledgment of MMIW, the United States has done little to address the issue.

My work on this issue began in April 2017, when I returned to Saskatchewan, my home, to meet with families of missing and murdered Indigenous women (MMIW) and elders across the province. I wanted to photograph the families of MMIW in a way that wasn’t desensitized and re-traumatizing; making portraits and evidential landscapes that told their stories in a humane and intimate manner. I photographed only women and documented them in their most emotional spaces: the places where they felt closest to their loved ones.

They signify the voices of their mothers, daughters, sisters, and friends who have been lost, persisting and fighting for justice.

With support from PHmuseum, I hope to continue my work in the United States. I’ve identified several communities across three states to create a nuanced record of the young women and family members who are closest to the issue of MMIW. I’d like to focus on young females in the throes of adolescence who are some of the most vulnerable to suicide. With many victims living in isolated communities, distrustful of bureaucratic justice systems, it is crucial to hear their stories and understand why this issue remains so pervasive, yet unheard.

My primary objective with this work in addition to publication is to pay homage to communities who have lost females to murder or disappearance through a healing and captivating exhibition I envision this exhibition to be ceremonial and to incorporate imagery of surviving family members, along with sacred items, letters written to victims, poems, traditional chants, and space for prayer. Eventually, and in conjunction with the exhibition, I hope to create a photo book with the series of images I make that acts as evidence to what Indigenous and Native American women have long endured and is a call to action for those who continue to downplay the issue.

With funding from the International Reporting Project, I made significant headway with communities and organizations in Saskatchewan. This work has been published in Vice Magazine, the Walrus Magazine (Gold Winner in the National Magazine Award) and was exhibited in a solo show at NYU’s Gallatin Galleries.

My drive to continue this project stems from my own shame and outrage. I grew up in this society and remained blind to the suffering of my Indigenous sisters. With this work, I hope to give Indigenous women an outlet to share their stories, awaken others to this assault on humanity and however miniscule, perhaps a step towards healing.

© Sara Hylton - Image from the Nobody Listened photography project
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Michelle Burns, thirty, sits with her ten-year-old niece, Dannataya, in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. Monica Lee, Dannataya’s mother and Michelle’s twin sister, was murdered in January 2015 by a thirty-eight-year-old white male she had met that night. He received a thirteen-year sentence. “I feel lonesome a lot,” Michelle says. “I have to remember that [Dannataya] is watching me. When I walk, I try to walk with good intentions, so that when she’s older she won’t end up lost. Her mom would want good things for her.”

© Sara Hylton - Image from the Nobody Listened photography project
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The North Saskatchewan River, located just outside of Prince Albert, where Beatrice Adam’s body was found on October 12, 2014. Her death remains unresolved. Beatrice disappeared along with her boyfriend, who has not been seen since. “She’s gone now,” said Beatrice’s father, Allan Adam. “We just want to know how she died.”

© Sara Hylton - Image from the Nobody Listened photography project
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From left to right: Marcia Bird, 19; Margaret Bird, 20; Aleisha Charles, 21; and Ariel Charles, 17, of La Ronge, pictured in Prince Albert, while searching for their mother. Some of the daughters had vivid dreams about where their mother might be, and with little police support, instigated a search on their own. In November, the police finally helped organize a search in which around 15 family and community members spent the weekend looking around an area six miles or so north of Prince Albert.

© Sara Hylton - Image from the Nobody Listened photography project
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Aleisha Charles, 21, shows a tattoo dedicated to her mother, Happy Charles, whose name in Cree, “Kokuminahkisis,” means “black widow.” Aleisha and her three other sisters traveled to Prince Albert from La Ronge, more than 100 miles, to search for their mother, who went missing at the beginning of April 2017. Though their mother is addicted to intravenous drugs and has been in and out of rehab since she was a teenager, she has never been missing for this long, according to Regina Poitras, Happy’s mother. Happy Charles remains missing to this day.

© Sara Hylton - Image from the Nobody Listened photography project
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Tracey George Heese, 42, sits in a tepee on buffalo skin, a symbol that reminds her of her late mother, Winnifred George. Winnifred was murdered and discovered next to a park bench in Edmonton, Alberta, more than 20 years ago. Tracey still has no answers. “This buffalo skin represents Canada, this North America. This was [our ancestor’s] land. I think of all the buffalo that were slaughtered [here]… Are aboriginal women to be sacrificed as the buffalo have?” said Tracey. “Not enough is being done. The Canadian system is derailing us… growing up and hearing of these deaths of our aboriginal women, it doesn’t matter if we’re educated. All you have to say is she’s aboriginal, and people have that stereotype.”

© Sara Hylton - Image from the Nobody Listened photography project
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Tanya Sayer, 38, estimates she has known ten indigenous women who have gone missing or been murdered, including some of serial killer Robert Pickton’s victims. “I’ve been raped, left on the outskirts of town, held hostage, been involved in gangs,” said Tanya, who says she was sucked into prostitution in her late teens. “The solution is only through the Creator, you have to want your life back,” she said. “There’s a spiritual sickness that comes from residential schools. It’s this transgenerational trauma… When you sober up, it’s just too painful… [The pain] never goes away. You just have to walk with it.” In many cases, women who have been victims of murder or abuse are in vulnerable life circumstances like Tanya. According to Troy Cooper, who was the police chief of Prince Albert for 13 years until moving to Saskatoon this January, “people take comfort in the idea that [murdered victims are] from a high-risk lifestyle, but sex workers are actually victims.”

© Sara Hylton - Image from the Nobody Listened photography project
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Wood burns in preparation for a sweat lodge on the outskirts of Regina. Many women facing the loss of a loved one have turned to sweat, ceremony, and traditional teachings. “The healing started from that first sweat. I sweat for four days,” said Gwenda Yuzicappi, whose daughter was found dead on Little Black Bear First Nation on May 5, 2008. “I still need all those ceremonies."

© Sara Hylton - Image from the Nobody Listened photography project
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Mary Tremblay, 33, finds solitude in La Ronge. Mary’s sister, Julie Houghton, was found dead in a ditch along the highway between Quinton and Raymore in 2005. Her death remains unsolved. “I would like to find the man who killed my sister,” Mary said. Thirty-five cases of missing and murdered indigenous women remain unsolved in Saskatchewan, but actual numbers are likely to be much higher.

© Sara Hylton - Image from the Nobody Listened photography project
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Linda Roberts, 36, remembers her daughter, Jadene Irving, during happier days outside of their home in La Ronge. Jadene committed suicide in her room in October 2016, at the age of 14. Jadene’s best friend and classmate took her life a few weeks after. In the same month, six young girls committed suicide. According to the Canadian Broadcast Corporation, First Nations’ youth lack hope. Self-esteem issues common at that age are compounded by poverty, inequality felt within communities, and lack of resources. Kids Help Phone, a charity organization that counsels children on the phone and online, concluded that 22 percent of Canadian teens considered suicide in 2016, and according to the Centre for Suicide prevention, indigenous youth were five to six times more likely to commit suicide than non-indigenous youth.

© Sara Hylton - Image from the Nobody Listened photography project
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The sun rises over the Valley of Fort Qu’Appelle. The Cree and the Saulteaux First Nations were once nomadic in these lands in search of buffalo. It was here, in 1874, where their rights and privileges to 75,000 square miles of land would be signed over to the Queen under Treaty 4.

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