editor's voice: Downtown East: Missing women, missing concern
Amy Zhang, Photo Editor

Police Investigate Port Coquitlam Pig Farm Connected with Missing Women. Addiction caused victim to work Streets. Pickton charged with murder of Serrena Abotsway and Mona Lee Wilson.

Why am I regurgitating news headlines from the last few weeks? Simple. I'm making up for lost time.

In spite of the recent regeneration of interest in to the case of Vancouver's missing women from the Downtown Eastside, within weeks, intense media attention has already began to wane. Perhaps in response to our information age attention span, or to coincide with the obsolesce style of postmodern times, the recently fashionable trend of showing concern for the safety of women who must deal with the threat of violence, assault and rape on a daily basis have already been reduced to the muzak which accompanies more sensationalist headlines.

While the families of Abotsway and Wilson await anxiously for the result of intense police investigation into Robert Pickton's Port Coquitlam pig farm, hoping that something will finally come out of the tip given to police almost three years before their murder, the media conveniently choose to use the headlines to celebrate Sale and Pelletier's negotiated gold medals or Nelly Furtado's Grammy win.

In one of the richest countries in the world that prides itself on its preservation of human rights, in a city that has been repeatedly judged to have a high standard of living, the perpetration of violence and assault again a specific segment of the population seems to arouse an insignificant level of public concern. This is a group of people that must accept the daily threat of violence and assault with the knowledge that they have no claim to any form of social protection due to their transgression of the law. In a time when health care is of vital concern, the Downtown Eastside has one of the highest reported HIV infection rates in the Western world.

The targets of violence are not an arbitrary heterogeneous group. The women of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside often share similar socioeconomic backgrounds, driven to take the streets by similar circumstances. The majority of the women come from abusive households; about fifty percent of sex-trade workers enter the industry before legal drinking age and about one third are aboriginals. My time in university has taught me the irony of meritocracy; these women are just as much the creation of social circumstance as the rest of us. While we may attribute our achievements to our capabilities and hard work, we must never forget that where we are is necessarily determined by what we are given to begin with.

The point has often been made: How many CEOs from the West End would have to disappear before the police took notice? How many lawyers? How many doctors? The lack of public concern demonstrates our society's complacent acceptance of the perpetration of violence against a specific social group deemed to deviate from social moray.

The question now becomes: What will happen after Robert Pickton? 48 women remain missing. Will it be another 20 years before we can begin to acknowledge our blind sight? Will it take 50 more missing women before another token arrest is made to appease our moral unease? I offer no attempt at simplistic solutions, but aim merely to give notice to a problem too easily overlooked, too quickly forgotten, and too often accepted. So the next time Canada wins double gold at the Olympics, look to the streets, and pay attention to those who may not have as much cause to celebrate.

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