In honour of missing women

Photo: Contributed

Deanna Mildred Wertz, left, Ashley Simpson and Caitlyn Potts

The public is invited to attend a candlelight vigil in Enderby for missing women and women who have been impacted by violence.

Organizer Jody Leon said the vigil will be held at tonight, Dec. 6th at 6 p.m., to coincide with the anniversary of the 1989 Montreal massacre when 14 women were shot to death at the Ecole Polytechnique.

Members of the local Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women drone team will lead the procession from Enderby/Grindrod Road to the Splatsin Community Centre where the women will be remembered with hand drumming and candles.

The march will take place where Caitlin Potts went missing from the Splatsin First Nation territory in February 2016.

The march will also remember Ashley Simpson, Deanna Wertz and Nicole Bell who have all gone missing from the North Okanagan-Shuswap area.

The remains of 18-year-old Traci Genereaux, another female who went missing, were found on a farm on Salmon River Road in Silver Creek earlier this year.

Her death is being treated as suspicious by RCMP.

Leon said that pictures of the women will be carried as a way to honour and remember them.

“Women deserve to live their lives with their families, and that the violence that occurred in the Montreal massacre and the five local missing women is violence against women that is unacceptable,” said Leon. “All women need to have advocates to raise awareness of what has happened to them or to raise the voice of respect and equality.”