Women’s Memorial March

The Women’s Memorial March is an annual event held on Valentine's Day that originated Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, to call attention to missing and murdered women in the district. As of 2009, the Missing Women’s Task Force, a joint program of the Vancouver Police and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, lists 39 women as missing from the Downtown Eastside.

The event was initiated by First Nations women in 1992, when the body of Cheryl Anne Joe was found dismembered at the corner of Powell and Salsbury streets. The march became an annual event to protest the high numbers of women missing and murdered in the community.

The event has since spread to other Western Canadian cities, including Edmonton and more recently, Calgary.