JUSTICE FOR GIRLS MONITORING PRELIMINARY INQUIRY OF DEZWAAN STARTING MONDAY

August 23, 2002

MEDIA ADVISORY
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Vancouver, BC, August 23, 2002 - Starting Monday August 26th, Justice for Girls will monitor the preliminary inquiry of Robert Raymond Dezwaan, the man accused of murdering Cherish Oppenheim, a sixteen year-old First Nations girl.

Joanne Czapska of Justice for Girls will be in court monitoring the preliminary hearing August 26th- 30th, 2002 at the Kamloops Provincial Court. Annabel Webb and Joanne Czapska of Justice for Girls will be available for comment throughout the hearing.

"We are monitoring this case because it appears to be a tragic example of how the police and courts failed to deal with a violent man and how this failure possibly contributed to the murder of Cherish Oppenheim", says Czapska of Justice for Girls.

Dezwaan had been convicted twice of assaulting women in 1993 and 1997 and was released on bail for sexual assault with a weapon and unlawful confinement of a young woman. He was on bail for these charges at the time of the murder of Cherish Oppenheim. A few hours before Cherish Oppenheim was murdered, Dezwaan was stopped by the police for drunk driving, the police failed to detain him even though he was violating his bail.

"Violence against First Nations girls is alarmingly prevalent in BC. We hope the police and courts will respond to violence against Aboriginal girls in an immediate and thorough manner. There are numerous unsolved cases of violence against Aboriginal girls in BC, including the cases of six girls who went missing or were murdered along Highway 16. It's critical that police in rural areas of BC put their full attention to solving the Highway 16 murders", says Annabel Webb of Justice for Girls.

Melissa Munn, Criminology Instructor at Northwest Community College in Terrace BC notes that "the longer these cases go unsolved, the harder it will be to find the person or persons responsible for these murders and disappearances. We need to keep these files current and the names and faces of these girls out in the public." She notes that "someone out there knows some detail that they think is unimportant but it could be the missing piece that puts the whole puzzle together."

Justice for Girls is a Vancouver based non-profit organization that promotes the rights of teenage girls in poverty and monitors court cases involving violence against teenage girls.


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