Discrimination and Human Atrocities

DISCRIMINATION AND HUMAN ATROCITIES
Sheri Smith
April 30, 2016

We are so fortunate to live in a country so culturally wealthy and diverse. It is hard to imagine a stain on the pages of our history books as troubling as the treatment of Aboriginal children over the course of 100 years.

In the 1870's, the government of Canada established residential schools for Aboriginal children with the goal to assimilate the Aboriginal people into Canadian society. Perhaps a better, and more accurate description came directly from the first Superintendent of those residential schools who stated publicly that the aim was to "kill the Indian in the child." From forced sterilization to forced starvation, and everything in between, what was inflicted on those children amounted to cultural, biological and physical genocide.

Well over a hundred thousand Aboriginal children were forcibly removed from their homes and taken to live in Church run facilities where emotional, physical and sexual abuse commonly occurred. It took until nearly the 21st century for the last of the schools to be closed, and for the remaining survivors to share their heartbreaking stories.

We speak of the human atrocities inflicted on people the world over, from WWII to the current state of affairs in the Middle East. Please, let us not forget what horrors were inflicted on our home soil. And please...may we never let it happen again.

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