Aboriginal Children In The 1950's

Another way the Canadian Government ineffectively responded to Aboriginal affairs was through the social issues the Aboriginals dealt with. One example of this would be the Sixties Scoop. Prior to the 1950’s, children were taken to residential schools, where they were forced to forget their Native culture, and were punished if they attempted to do otherwise. In the late 1950’s, people started to realize the negative impacts the residential schools had on the children, as well as their families. This led to the drastic overrepresentation of Aboriginal children in the child welfare system in the 1960’s. Aboriginal children were seized, taken from their homes and placed into middle-class Euro-Canadian families. This mass removal of Aboriginal

Having non-educated workers provided little to no help for the children, as the social workers were not able to understand or provide appropriate advice for the children in times of need, as their lack of knowledge of the origin of the child(ren) made them useless. Foster homes were claimed to be “better for the children”, but now it is evident that it was an excuse for the Euro-Canadians to stomp out the Native Heritage in Canada. By the 1970’s, approximately 70% of Aboriginal children were taken and placed into Non-Aboriginal homes. The Indigenous children who were taken in began to deal with many social issues themselves . Examples of the impacts of the welfare system on Aboriginal children were that they grew up in conditions of suppressed identity and abuse, experienced psychological and emotional problems, and felt like they did not belong, as they did not fit in the Euro-Canadian society, nor the Aboriginal society. This created barriers for them reaching socio-economic equity. Due to Canada’s ineffective dealing with this issue, many of the Aboriginals who live today deal with mental instability, due to the emotional impact it had on them. Unfortunately, due to Canada’s prior actions, this continues in today’s

Aboriginal women suffered in contemporary Canada, as they dealt with racism, sexism, and domestic violence. Due to the Aboriginals’ fairly low status amongst the Canadian population, murders and missing cases of Aboriginals were disregarded, making them vulnerable targets. Women were considered inferior to men, so Native women living in Canada dealt with the worst of the crimes committed, the crime rate against them being disturbingly high. Approximately 70% of Missing Cases were Murder Cases, death being as a result of homicide or negligence, 4% being cases of suspicious death, when authorities regarded the case as natural or accidental, whilst the family and or band viewed it as suspicious and 9% were cases where the nature of the case was unknown. Not only did the authorities silence these issues, but when these women were molested, the women themselves kept quiet, as it was a personal issue, and they feared they would be shunned, rather than the molester themselves. Rape amongst the greater Aboriginal population became so frequent, that almost every Indigenous girl would be raped at least once in their life. The crime rate against female Aboriginals was so high that no longer were these sins being shunned and dealt with properly, but overlooked. The Government, in the meantime, showed lack of responsibility in the desperate times of need. While the