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Two sisters, who have been carrying a poster-board collage of photographs all through the march, ascend the stairs and take the microphone. They tell the story of their mother, Elsie Jones Sebastian, who went missing on the downtown eastside thirteen years ago. They talk about how Elsie grew up in poverty, and how she suffered in residential school. They say that she was deeply wounded by her experiences, and looked to drugs and alcohol as a means of coping with her pain and fear. Her children, the two women who are speaking, were apprehended by family services. Elsie was last seen on Vancouver’s downtown eastside, working the streets as a prostitute. They do not know what happened to her, and they still can’t understand how someone, their mother, can just disappear. But the real tragedy, the women say, is that their mother’s story is not unique. They ask the crowd, the police, the city: Where is the safety net that that the government talks about? There was no safety net for our mother. How many women will have to go missing before something is done? How can we break this cycle? |
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