The Sisters in Spirit initiative was a program led by the Native Women's Association of Canada (NWAC) and funded by Status of Women Canada. Beginning in 2005, the initiative was an effort to research and document the statistics of violence against Indigenous women in Canada. It also sought to heighten awareness and education regarding the treatment of Indigenous women, and ultimately influence policy to address these issues through documenting the lived experience of Indigenous women and highlighting the underlying causes of this violence.

Between 1978 and 2002, nearly seventy sex-trade workers disappeared from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, many of whom were Indigenous. During the 1990s, British Columbia’s Highway 16 became known as the "Highway of Tears" after more than thirty-two Indigenous women and girls had been reported either missing or dead.

Indigenous groups and organizations, including the families and friends of victims, increasingly began making public calls for action to address the issue of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in Canada. One of the organizations leading those calls was the NWAC.

The NWAC is a non-profit organization run by Indigenous women. It was established in 1974 to focus on sex discrimination resulting from the Indian Act and Indigenous women’s interests that were not being addressed by other Aboriginal organizations. In 2002, the NWAC submitted a report to the United Nations describing the devaluation of Indigenous women in Canada, noting cases where Indigenous women were victims of violence.

The report identified systemic oppression and economic marginalization of Indigenous communities, female members in particular, as causes for the violence. Such conditions were fostered and reinforced by government policies and indifference from police and society as a whole. As a result, Indigenous women are more likely to live in poverty and resort to working in the sex trade.

In October 2004, Amnesty International released "Stolen Sisters: A Human Rights Response to Discrimination and Violence Against Indigenous Women in Canada," a report created in partnership with NWAC. The document asserted that the Canadian government had not done enough to protect Indigenous women, estimating that more than 500 Indigenous women and girls were either missing or murdered over the previous twenty years.

In March 2004, the NWAC launched a one-year “Sisters in Spirit” campaign to not only draw more public attention to the issue of violence toward Indigenous women, but secure government funding for a multi-year project to study the problem. In 2005, the Canadian federal government announced it would provide funding for the research initiative, with five million dollars to be allocated from Status of Women Canada over five years.

The aims of Sisters in Spirit were to establish a reliable estimate of the total number of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls in Canada, share some of the victim’s life stories, determine the root causes of the violence, and identify measures to increase the safety of Indigenous women.