Advocates call for government action on Pickton inquiry recommendations

VANCOUVER – A coalition of groups advocating for the families of serial killer Robert Pickton’s victims says the government needs to act now on compensation and protection of other vulnerable women.

The Missing Women Coalition met with Attorney General Suzanne Anton today to relay the message that too few of the recommendations have been implemented from the inquiry into missing women.

Commissioner Wally Oppal made 65 recommendations to address the systemic gaps that allowed Pickton to target sex workers in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

Mona Woodward, with the Downtown Eastside Sister Watch program, says on top of family compensation, the group wants safer transportation along Highway 16, the northern B.C. highway where 18 women have disappeared or been murdered over the past few decades.

After the meeting, Anton issued a statement saying there is action underway on half of the recommendations in Oppal’s report.

The province has already provided what Oppal said was urgently needed funding for a drop-in centre that provides services for sex workers in the Downtown Eastside.