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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8, 2017 Hilda Anderson-Pyrz, co-chair of Manitoba advocates for families of missing and murdered Indigenous women, weeps as she speaks of her murdered sister. JOHN WOODS/ THE CANADIAN PRESS
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Missing person cases skyrocket PUBLIC SAFETY
Families advocate sees link to number of children in care Jessica Botelho-Urbanski
For Metro | Winnipeg
IN THE DARK Families of missing and murdered women call for details on inquiry metroNEWS
The soaring number of missing people — children especially — in Winnipeg has one children’s advocate demanding more than “Band-Aid approaches” from the province. More than 9,700 missing-persons reports were filed in the city in 2016, while about 8,800 reports were filed the year before, said Shaunna Neufeld, detective sergeant with the Winnipeg Police Service’s missing-persons unit. A report on the figures will be addressed by the Winnipeg Police Board on Friday. “(The numbers) are up a little bit from the previous year, but it has to be stressed a lot of those youth files are resolved fairly quickly,” Neufeld said Tuesday. “There’s a number that resolve within 24 hours.” Neufeld said chronic runaways account for a large number of cases. There were
24 people who were reported missing 15 or more times during the last three months of 2016, the report said. For Neufeld, who is transferring out of the missing-persons unit next month after six years on the job, said there’s “always more work to be done.” “There’s some things that aren’t easily solved, right? Kids with addiction issues, I think there does need to be a longerterm treatment centre in Manitoba to address their needs,” she said. “Until that happens ... I don’t think things are going to dramatically change for those kids.” Minister of Families Scott Fielding said in an email the province is working on a co-ordinated approach with police and community agencies to support children in care who are at risk of exploitation. Fielding said the government plans to expand the StreetReach program, which is “dedicated to locating high-risk youth and helping them find places of safety.” Cora Morgan, the First Nations family advocate who works with the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, said she believes the rising number of missing people correlates with the rising number of children in care. More than 10,000 children are in the province’s care and nearly 90 per cent of them are Indigenous, Morgan said.