The events that lead up to the removal of Barry Hambly and his three brothers from their mother, reflected a series of policies that adversely affected — and continue to affect — First Nations people. Barrys mother, Darlene Whitecap, has experienced firsthand the impact of these policies on her life, and the lives of her children. Darlene Whitecap was raised on a reserve and taken away to a white-run residential school at age four. Eventually returning to the reserve, she found herself in an abusive relationship when she was 16. By the time she was 24 years old, with four young children, alcohol had become a part of her life. It was then that she decided to run from the reserve to Regina. Soon after, she would lose her children to social agencies due to her alcoholism. The adoption policies of this era were controversial and became known as the Sixties Scoop.Information below taken from: Full Circle. Canadas First Nations. John Steckley, Humber College and Bryan Cummins, McMaster University. Prentice Hall ISBN 0-13.087830.8
STEALING THE CHILDREN: THE SIXTIES SCOOP In 1951, the Indian Act was changed so that provincial authorities would be responsible for the welfare of Indian children. This had little effect initially. This can be seen in the British Columbia statistic for 1955 in which 29 of the 3,433 children placed in protective care in the province were Native, less than 1%. Starting in the 1960s, however, aggressive policies of taking Native children from their families, communities, and from the Native world generally came into play. In British Columbia in 1964, the figure became 1,446 Native children out of a total of 4,228 children, or 34.2%. In his book Native Children and the Child Welfare System, writer Patrick Johnston coined the term Sixties Scoop to refer to the forced migration of aboriginal children.
The situation was the worst in Manitoba. Between 1971 and 1981, over 3,400 Native children were taken from their homes and removed from their province. More than a thousand of these children were sent to the United States, where there was a demand for children to adopt. American agencies could get $4,000 for every child placed. Native children in the United States had been adopted in a similar way until 1978, when the Indian Child Welfare Act was passed, protecting the children from being taken from their people There is still no such law in Canada.
In 1982, the Manitoba government finally agreed to impose a moratorium on the export of children outside of the province, the last province to do so. There was an investigation into the practice. Justice Edwin C. Kimelman wrote a report in 1985 entitled No Quiet Place, based primarily on looking at the 93 children that were exported in 1981. He did not mince his words in his conclusions, saying: Cultural genocide has been taking place in a systematic routine manner. One gets an image of children stacked in foster homes as used cars are stacked on corner lots, just waiting for the right buyer to stroll by. (as reported in Fournier and Crey 1997:88)
WHY TAKE THE CHILDREN AWAY?
Why did they take these children from their homes and from their people? There are a number of reasons. Part of it is cultural. Non-Native social workers and agencies have in their minds a set of ideas as to what a family and a good home are like. For family, they think of two parents and their children, the nuclear family. However, there are strong traditions in Native cultures in Canada that think of the family as something larger than this
Then there is the good home in terms of physical resources. For non-Native Canadians, this would include a separate bedroom for each child, sewage or a septic tank, and running water. Most Native houses, often structures designed by Indian Affairs, could not meet those standardsSometimes the children were taken away for health reasons. This could mean that newborn infants needing to be in or near an urban hospital for treatment would be fostered to a non-Native family who lived nearby and would never be given back to their Native parents. This despite the fact that those parents had done nothing to abuse or even harm the children. Red Road is produced by Lost Heritage Productions in association with Life Network, and with the financial participation of the Canadian Television Fund (CTF). Copies of this film are available for Institutional and private viewing.
Distribution copies are available from our web site at:
http://novamulti.com/red_road.htm
Loading...
3:54
NUIFC: The Significance of the Indian Child Welfare Actby NUIFC762 views
Thoughts Prayers and deep Respect to those suffered and still the chain goes on today >.My prayers are with all~Thank you for posting this~pCe~
WyteDove 1 year ago
Is there any more videos you can post about this, thank you.
Booliocious 2 years ago