There Are More Indigenous Children in Care Now than at the Height of Residential Schools | The Walrus

"More than 150,000 children taken. That's really all you need to know about residential schools. In Canada, more than 150,000 Indigenous children attended these institutions between the 1870s and the late 1990s. There, they died, suffered, and ached-for their families, communities, languages, and ways of life. Today, there are more Indigenous children in care than there were at the height of the residential school system."

"I remain haunted by the stories I reported and the statistics surrounding Indigenous children and youth in Canada. The number of Indigenous girls who go missing while in the care of the province of British Columbia, for example, and the continuation of cycles perpetuated by the child welfare system that seep into Canada's prisons are amplifying the same harms that, for decades, Indigenous people have fought to heal and recover from."

More than 150,000 Indigenous children attended residential schools in Canada between the 1870s and the late 1990s, where many died, suffered, and longed for families, communities, languages, and ways of life. Currently more Indigenous children are in state care than at the residential system’s peak, perpetuating intergenerational harms. A journalist trained for IndigiNews covered the child welfare system drawing on youth-worker experience and reported on missing Indigenous girls in provincial care and cycles that feed into prisons. The Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement was the largest Canadian class-action settlement and reflects decades of Indigenous advocacy tied to broader losses under colonialism.

Read at The Walrus