Indigenous children removed from homes in the 1960s begin to heal

Indigenous children removed from homes in the 1960s begin to heal

For three decades across Canada, thousands of aboriginal children were taken from their homes and adopted.

by Lauren Pelley Mon Nov 02 2015

KEMPTVILLE ....one by one, the 40 or so attendees of this Indigenous Adoptee Gathering introduce themselves to the group. Some are from Ontario, others from Manitoba or the Yukon. Some are Cree, others Métis or Ojibway.

Most are members of a stolen generation.

Beginning in the mid-1960s — and for several decades after — thousands of indigenous children across Canada were removed from their homes and typically placed with white middle-class families in Canada and abroad.

Patrick Johnston, author of the 1983 report Native Children and the Child Welfare System, dubbed it the Sixties Scoop.

Those children are now adults, sharing their stories of emotional, physical and sexual abuse, mental illness and a sense of isolation from being torn between Euro-Canadian and indigenous culture....

The Sixties Scoop wasn’t a government policy, but rather a noticeable trend once mandatory residential school education was phased out in the 1950s and 1960s....

Child welfare services were expanded to indigenous communities across Canada through the late 1960s, which “left a profound and negative impact on these communities,” notes the report.

“There was no publicity for years and years about the brutalization of our families and children by the larger Canadian society,” one member of the indigenous community told the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry launched in 1988 by Manitoba’s provincial government.

“Kidnapping was called placement in foster homes. Exporting aboriginal children to the U.S. was called preparing Indian children for the future. Parents who were heartbroken by the destruction of their families were written off as incompetent people.”

Manitoba’s government established a review committee on “Indian and Métis Adoptions and Placements” in the 1980s, headed by Associate Chief Family Court Judge Edwin Kimelman, and imposed a halt on out-of-province placements of indigenous children.

After reviewing the files of every indigenous Manitoban child adopted by an out-of-province family, Kimelman wrote in a 1984 report that “cultural genocide” had been taking place in a “systematic, routine manner.”

While not every placement of an indigenous child in the Canadian adoption system was a result of the Sixties Scoop, the number of children removed and placed into foster care or adoptive families likely numbered in the tens of thousands....

In June, Manitoba became the first province to offer a formal apology to thousands of victims with Premier Greg Selinger promising the topic will be included in the provincial school curriculum. But what should be done throughout the rest of Canada? A few organizations offered their viewpoints of how the federal and provincial governments should be handling the aftermath of the Sixties Scoop....
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/11/02/indigenous-children-removed-from-homes-in-the-1960s-just-now-beginning-to-heal.html

An Invitation to join Kevin Annett and friends in New York City - September 4, 2013

An Invitation to join Kevin Annett and friends in New York City - September 4, 2013

Reclaiming the Earth, our Children and the Commons:

A Conversation with Kevin Annett, Quisia Gonzalez, Colia Clark, Neil Brick and Alanna Hartzok

Wednesday, September 4th
7:00 – 9:00 PM

Henry George School of Social Science

Main floor Lecture Hall
121 East 30th Street
New York, NY  10016

Please come and participate in this important gathering, where key activists will compare perspectives and strategies in the struggle to defend mother earth, our children, indigenous culture and our common law liberties.

The rights of the earth, of victims of Genocide and of church and ritual torture, and of those targeted by the state will be among the topics discussed.

Other actions in New York City will accompany this event. For more information, contact Kevin Annett until September 3 at 386-323-5774.

Co-sponsored by The International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State (ITCCS) - New York

Please post.

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See the evidence of Genocide in Canada and other crimes against the innocent at www.hiddennolonger.com and at the websites of The International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State at http://www.itccs.org  and http://www.itccs.tv  .

An International, multi-lingual ITCCS site can be found at: http://kevinannettinternational.blogspot.fr/


The complete Common Law Court proceedings of Genocide in Canada are found at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvhfXAd08TE  - Common Law Court Proceedings - Genocide in Canada  (Part One) - 1 hr. 46 mins.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPKFk_L7y9g  - Common Law Court Proceedings - Genocide in Canada  (Part Two) - 1 hr. 47 mins.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ormOIlOi4Vc  - Final Court Verdict and Sentencing - 8 mins. 30 secs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IylfBxm3sMg  - Authorizations and Endorsements of ITCCS/Kevin Annett by indigenous eyewitnesses - 10 mins.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CReISnQDbBE  - Irene Favel, Eyewitness to the incineration of a newborn baby by a priest at Muscowegan Catholic Indian school, Saskatchewan, 1944

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBUd3UXt6fI  - Other key testimonies from our Court case against genocide in Canada

Kevin Annett is a Nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize (2013). Messages for him can be left at 250-591-4573 (Canada) or 386-323-5774 (USA).

"I gave Kevin Annett his Indian name, Eagle Strong Voice, in 2004 when I adopted him into our Anishinabe Nation. He carries that name proudly because he is doing the job he was sent to do, to tell his people of their wrongs. He speaks strongly and with truth. He speaks for our stolen and murdered children. I ask everyone to listen to him and welcome him."
Chief Louis Daniels - Whispers Wind
Elder, Crane Clan, Anishinabe Nation, Winnipeg, Manitoba