Sara Hylton

Canadian storyteller focusing on gender + human rights |

www.sarahylton.com

Nobody Listened

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Location: Mumbai, India

Nationality: Canadian

Biography: Sara Hylton is an award-winning photographer and explorer recognized for her compassionate and intimate approach to human rights issues. Hylton is a faculty member at the International Center of Photography and holds an MA from Kings College... MORE

Dannataya, 11 at the time, and ... good things for her."

1 of 10 © 2024 Sara Hylton

Dannataya, 11 at the time, and her aunt Michelle Burns, 31 at the time, find peace among the trees in Prince Albert. Monica Lee Burns, Dannataya's mother and Michelle's twin sister, was murdered by a stranger, 38-year-old white male Told Daniel McKeaveney, and found dead in a desolate area outside Prince Albert in January 2015. McKeaney received 13 years in prison. "I feel lonesome a lot. My elder tells me to pray to the Creator and to go near a tree," Michelle said. "When you think about all the missing and murdered Indigenous women, they don't have a voice, so their family members are the ones trying to have a voice. I have to remember that [Dannataya] is watching me. When I walk, I try to walk with good intentions so that when she's older she won't end up lost. Her mom would want good things for her."

The North Saskatchewan River lo...ce's father, Alan Adam.

2 of 10 © 2024 Sara Hylton

The North Saskatchewan River located just outside of Prince Albert where Beatrice Adam’s body was found on October 12th, 2014. Her death remains unresolved and her family is left without answers. Beatrice disappeared along with her boyfriend, whose body has yet to be located. “She’s gone now, we just want to know how she died” said Beatrice's father, Alan Adam.

Marcia Bird, 19, Margaret Bird,...n. Happy remains missing today.

3 of 10 © 2024 Sara Hylton

Marcia Bird, 19, Margaret Bird, 20, Aleisha Charles, 21, and Ariel Charles, 17 of La Ronge, are pictured in Prince Albert during a search for their mother, Happy Charles, who went missing at the beginning of April 2017. Some of the daughters had vivid dreams about where their mother might be, and with little police support, instigated a search on their own. Happy, who has been addicted to intravenous drugs since she was a teenager, has had spurts of disappearing, but never for this length of time according to her mother, Regina Poitras. The Federation of Sovereign Nations estimates that 60 percent of missing women in Saskatchewan are indigenous, though they make up only 6 percent of the population. Happy remains missing today.

Aleisha Charles, 21 at the time...s mother remains missing today.

4 of 10 © 2024 Sara Hylton

Aleisha Charles, 21 at the time, shows a tattoo dedicated to her mother, Happy Charles, whose name in cree “Kokuminahkisis” means black widow. Aleisha and her three other sisters traveled to Prince Albert from La Ronge to search for their mother who went missing at the beginning of April. Though their mother is addicted to intravenous drugs and has been in and out of rehab since she was a teenager, she has never been missing for this long, according to Regina Poitras, Happy’s mother. Aleisha’s mother remains missing today.

Tracey George Heese, 42 at the ...ave that stereotype.”

5 of 10 © 2024 Sara Hylton

Tracey George Heese, 42 at the time, sits on buffalo skin in a tipi, a symbol that reminds her of her late mother, Winnifred George. Winnifred was murdered and discovered next to a park bench in Edmonton, Alberta over 20 years ago. There was no police investigation into the murder and Tracey is still left without answers. “This buffalo skin represents Canada, this North America. This was [our ancestor’s] land. I think of all the buffalo that were slaughtered [here]…Are aboriginal women to be sacrificed as the buffalo have?” said Tracey. “Not enough is being done, the Canadian system is derailing us…growing up and hearing of these deaths of our Aboriginal women, it doesn’t matter if we’re educated, all you have to say is she’s Aboriginal and people have that stereotype.”

Tanya Sayer, 37 at the time, st...re actually victims.”

6 of 10 © 2024 Sara Hylton

Tanya Sayer, 37 at the time, stands in her Elder’s backyard in Regina, Saskatchewan, who she turns to for guidance and healing. “I’ve been raped, left on the outskirts of town, held hostage, been involved in gangs” expressed Tanya, who was involved in prostitution since grade 5. She estimates she has known ten Indigenous women who have gone missing or been murdered, including some of Robert Pickton’s victims. “The solution is only through the creator, you have to want your life back” she said. “There’s a spiritual sickness that comes from residential schools, it’s this transgenerational trauma…when you sober up it’s just too painful… [the pain] never goes away, you just have to walk with it.” In many cases, women who have been victims of murder or abuse are in vulnerable life circumstances like Tanya. According to Troy Cooper, the Police Chief of Prince Albert, “people take comfort in the idea that it’s someone from a high risk lifestyle, but sex workers are actually victims.”

Wood burns in preparation for a...” said Ms. Yuzicappi.

7 of 10 © 2024 Sara Hylton

Wood burns in preparation for a sweat lodge on the outskirts of Regina, Saskatchewan. Many women facing the loss of a loved one have turned to sweat, ceremony and traditional teachings. “The healing started from that first sweat. I sweat for four days,” said Gwenda Yuzicappi, whose daughter was found dead on Little Black Bear First Nation on May 7th, 2008. “I still need all those ceremonies” said Ms. Yuzicappi.

Mary Tremblay, 33 at the time, ...s are likely to be much higher.

8 of 10 © 2024 Sara Hylton

Mary Tremblay, 33 at the time, finds solitude in nature in Saskatchewan’s northern town of La Ronge. Mary’s sister, Julie Houghton, was found dead in a ditch along the highway between Quinton and Raymore back in 2005. Her death remains unsolved. "I would like to find the man who killed my sister” said Mary. 33 cases of missing and murdered indigenous women remain unsolved in Saskatchewan, but numbers are likely to be much higher.

Linda Roberts, 36 at the time, ...think about suicide.

9 of 10 © 2024 Sara Hylton

Linda Roberts, 36 at the time, remembers her daughter, Jadene Irving, during happier days outside of their home in La Ronge, Saskatchewan. Jadene committed suicide in her room last October at the age of 14. Jadene’s best friend and classmate took her life a few weeks after. In the same month, six young girls committed suicide resulting in a crisis in communities across the North. According to a mental health worker in La Ronge, suicide is a response to [intergenerational] trauma and terrible pain that many people don’t have the opportunity to deal with. According to Kids Help Phone, 22 percent of Canadian teens considered suicide this past year, and Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations officials said indigenous youth are five times more likely than non-indigenous youth to think about suicide.

The sun rises over the Valley o...er to the Queen under Treaty 4.

10 of 10 © 2024 Sara Hylton

The sun rises over the Valley of Fort Qu'Appelle. The Cree and the Saulteaux First Nations once roamed these lands in search of buffalo. It was here, in 1874, where their rights and privileges to 75,000 square miles of land were signed over to the Queen under Treaty 4.

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Private Story

Nobody Listened

Copyright Sara Hylton 2024

Updated Apr 2020

Location Regina, Saskatchewan

Topics Photography, Poverty, Racism, Violence, Womens Rights

On Sept. 25^th, 2013 in Regina, Saskatchewan, Kelly Goforth’s body was found in a red garbage bin wrapped in a hockey back in an industrial area of town. Goforth’s killer, a white male, is known to have killed Richele Bear, another indigenous woman, and the family suspects he may have killed others. Goforth’s death is not an isolated incident in Saskatchewan, one of many areas in Canada struggling with a shameful history of abuse, neglect and indifference towards its First Nations women and people. Human rights groups estimate that at least 4000 indigenous women have been murdered or gone missing across Canada. Though Justin Trudeau promised a national inquiry into the issue that was meant to begin in May 2017, it has been met with delays, disappointment, and controversy.

I returned home after 15 years and spent the month of April traveling across Saskatchewan meeting with Indigenous women. Attempting to cut through the numbers and the desensitized nature in which families of missing and murdered indigenous women (MMIW) are portrayed, the incredible resilience and strong tradition among communities was revealed. This was the story I saw.

Through authentic and natural portraiture and evidential landscapes, my aim is to bring the stories of these women to viewers in a humane and intimate way. Exploring the emotional space between loss and healing, women were photographed in locations where they felt closest to their loved ones, hoping to give them a sense of agency.

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