Red Dress Pins

Proceeds from the sale of Red Dress Pins go towards Curve Lake First Nation's Westview House, helping women and children who are in danger of homelessness or are homeless

A statement by Lorraine Whitman, President of the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC), to mark national Red Dress Day 2022 in Canada.

“On May 5, we will see the red dresses suspended from trees, hanging from windows, swaying in the breeze.

But we will see much more than that. We will see the people who would have worn those crimson garments. We will see their smiles. We will hear their laughter. We will think about the last time we held them in our arms … and they held us in theirs.

They were our mothers, our daughters, our sisters, our aunties, our friends.

We want them to be with us once again … in that forest … on that front porch. We want them to come home.

We want to know what happened. How were they taken from us? And why?

But mostly, we want to know that other families will be spared this pain.

On National Red Dress Day, please join us at the Native Women’s Association of Canada in remembering the far too many Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people who have been murdered or gone missing.

And join us in demanding an end to the violence that a national inquiry has declared to be a genocide.”