Flin Flon’s FAASE (Flin Flon Area Against Sexual Exploitation) Committee invites everyone in our community, and especially grandmothers, to join us for a short walk on Monday, Sept. 22 from Neighbours of the North Park (the metal flowers) to Pioneer Square.
There will be a pipe ceremony held for anyone wanting to join us at 4 pm. Following the pipe ceremony, we will walk down Main Street in Flin Flon with an RCMP escort to Pioneer Square. Please join us for entertainment, bannock and chili.
This walk will be held in support of a group formed in 2007 called the Kookum Kaa Na Da Maa Waad Abinoojiiak Council or “Grandmothers Protecting Our Children” who do their Annual Sacred Walk each year on Sept. 21, during the fall equinox. The message they give: “Children are Sacred.”
The group was started by a grandmother who was outraged after hearing stories of abuse by adults on children, often in the form of sexual exploitation. She called upon Aboriginal women, leaders and grandmothers to stand together and let it be known that children’s voices need to be heard; that they are not alone; that they are loved.
As elders and grandmothers, these women have reclaimed their roles as protectors of our children.
In more remote areas of the province, it is often assumed that problems like sexual exploitation don’t happen here. The truth is that it does.
Many youth all over the province become victims of exploitation when they are asked or forced to exchange sex for necessities or other items like transportation, food, clothing, shelter, cigarettes or alcohol.
According to reports written by the TERF Mentor and Youth Program of Winnipeg in 2005 and 2006, statistics for Manitoba have shown that 85-90 per cent of sexually exploited children/youth are female; 10-15 per cent male.
Also, 13 is the average age that children report they were the first time they experienced exploitation, and 70-80 per cent of children and youth exploited in Manitoba are of Aboriginal descent.
The FAASE Committee is made up of community members who believe this should and can be stopped and that it cannot be mistaken as a “lifestyle choice” on the part of the child or youth – it is child abuse.
For more information about this committee, or to become a member, call 204-687-8856. For more information on Manitoba’s provincial strategy go to: www.gov.mb.ca/fs/traciastrust/index.html.
