Violence happens inside the home

Qujannamik, mat’na, koana, thank you, merci, for speaking out on this issue of “Take Back the Night” (Nunatsiaq News, Oct. 21).

For years now I had a feeling we were targeting the wrong idea, which started in England.

You are correct in saying that violence happens almost all the time behind closed doors and not on the street. We might see arguments or people who are intoxicated out on the streets, but the abuse happens inside the homes.

Before, when we lived as family units in camps, the people knew what was happening and would intervene. Now we live in individual houses and do not visit or spend that much time with our families and loved ones. There is no one to be accountable to, and the punching, hitting, and hurtful words are exchanged. While this is happening, the children are listening and witnessing all of this happening in their homes as they grow up, and do the same things that their parents did (even after vowing never to be the same), with their parent’s jealousy, keeping an eye on each other, calling to ensure they are still at that place, accusing, no money, pattik, bingo, drugs, alcohol, and so on.

We need to work as a community, not so much as individuals, but a whole whack of different people coming together and not just once a year — it has to be continuous.

We need someone like a check-up person, we need families involved in talking and coming up with solutions — do not leave them out. This confidentiality issue is not working in our system — it is just making it harder.

Sometimes the families aren’t even notified when their loved ones are flown away to a different community, and they aren’t given the opportunity to speak. We need more Inuit intervention, not the GN system coming in to “solve” it for a little while and not even following-up or calling the family.

And I’m really disappointed in our Elders. They are not speaking out or coming up with solutions. They wait for things to “calm down” but sometimes it just gets worse when we are shutting it out.

We’ve lost too many people because we cannot even speak up anymore. I wish we could help each other out more and not be afraid. This is Canada, not Iran.

Madeleine Qumuatuq
Pangnirtung