The mistreatment of First Nations children in residential schools was appalling – and racial injustices persist
Last month, the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation found the remains of 215 children who had been buried in unmarked graves at the site of a former Indian residential school in British Columbia. Residential schools, which operated in Canada from 1883 to 1996, were government-funded, church-run institutions that took Indigenous children away from their families, with the aim of “[killing] the Indian in the child”.
This was not just a metaphor. The mass grave discovered was one of many that are believed to exist at or near more than 100 residential schools all over Canada. These graves were often visible from the windows of the schools. Some children were even forced to bury their own classmates.
Related: ‘He was just a child’: dead of Indigenous residential schools haunt Canada
Cindy Blackstock, a member of the Gitxsan First Nation, is the executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society and professor at McGill University. Pamela Palmater, a member of Ugpi’ganjig (Eel River Bar First Nation), is professor and chair in indigenous governance at Ryerson University
Continue reading…This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.