Aboriginal Human Rights

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History is evident of the egregious health disparities between Aboriginal populations and the rest of the Canadian population, especially when it comes to women of native status. The Canadian Constitution Act of 1982 defines the Aboriginal people as a population which includes the Native Indians, Inuit, and the Metis (Government of Canada, 1982). The geographical location of this population ranges across the country - members are part of bands and tribes on reserves or are registered as a Fist Nations individual and reside elsewhere (Statistics Canada, 2011). Aboriginal women of Canada specifically are the victims of human rights violations; especially when it comes to health care access and services; this is evident from the history of oppression …show more content…

This decrease in level of health is not just due to possible interactions of contact (i.e. infectious diseases such as smallpox that followed the European settlers into Canada), changes in social life (i.e. implementation of treaties), and conflict situations (i.e. civil war of 1700s), there are large underlying factors including discrimination and unjust treatment (i.e. slavery) by white dominant expansionism (Herbert and Donna, 2008; McGibbon, 2012; Wilson and Northcott, 2008). Racism of this population has had huge impacts on their lifestyles and has become a primary social determinant of their health. The Indian Act of 1876 (amended multiple times since) was passed and included: taxation, legal possession of native property (only exempt on certain conditions), states how populations on reserves should operate and be essentially isolated from the rest of the populace of the country, rules of bands, creation of residential schools, bans on religious ceremonies (i.e. potlatch), etc. (Steckley and Bryan, 2008; CLII, …show more content…

The specific areas of health care that will be examined include primary care and maternal care because these are the two aspects of medicine that are stated to be most variable when it comes to discrimination and prejudice towards gender and race (Frohlich, Ross, Richmond, 2006). The purpose of comparing the Aboriginal women populations in the two geographic localities is to assess the degree of oppression varying between the populations, and its effects on health care access and services. A lot can be learned from this review in terms of the current health care services available to women of this minority and this can raise further questions about how these challenges can be tackled. This topic is very relevant to our Canadian society and its health care system today since this group does comprise a certain percentage of the population overall, and in order to improve health care, the individual factors affecting Aboriginal women is a foundation that needs to be considered and clearly

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