This Week in Human Rights News

Mass graves found in former residential schools in Canada 

Sources: NPR, NYT, CBC CA, Residential Overview CA, Indigenous Atlas of CA, Indigenous Foundations CA, Democracy Now!, The Guardian, National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation

Please note that this story contains discussion of distressing events, child abuse, and death.

 Since the end of May, Indigenous* tribes in Canada have been discovering mass graves of mostly children at the sites of previous residential schools. To date, close to 1,000 graves have been discovered at school sites in British Columbia and Saskatchewan. Discoveries have been made with historical information of missing children from tribes and radar technology. (NPR/AP/NYT) 

The unmarked graves have been identified by the Penelakut Tribe (Province of British Columbia), Cowessess First Nation (province of Saskatchewan), and Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation (Kamloops, British Columbia), which was the first report in late May. (NPR/AP) (CBC CA)

 Residential schools were a school system created by the Canadian government in partnership with Anglican, Methodist, and Presbyterian churches that operated from the early 1880s until 1996. (Residential Overview CA) Schools were present in every province except for Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, and New Brunswick. (Indigenous Atlas of CA)

The purpose of residential schools was to indoctrinate and assimilate Indigenous children into Euro-Canadian and Christian ways of life. (Indigenous Foundations CA). More than 150,000 Inuit, Métis, Indigenous and First Nations children between the ages of 4-16 were forced to attend residential schools.(Residential Overview CA)

[Trigger warning] Treatment of children at residential schools was horrible. After being separated from their families, children were given new names, had their hair cut off, were forced to wear Western clothes, adopt the school’s religion, and were not allowed to speak their native languages in order to assimilate them into speaking English and French. There was also widespread sexual and physical abuse among other forms of egregious child abuse. This, combined with deplorable sanitary conditions resulted in high mortality rates. The exact number of fatalities is unknown because the Canadian government stopped recording deaths in 1920. (Democracy Now!)

It is estimated that as many as 25,000 children may have died at residential schools from neglect, abuse, accidents, or disease. In many cases, families never learned the fate of their children. (CBC CA) (NYT) 

With the last residential school closed in 1996, it is estimated that approximately 80,000 survivors are still alive today (out of an estimated 150,000). For these survivors and their families, this has resulted in profound intergenerational trauma that continues to affect Indigenous communities to this day. The Canadian government did not acknowledge the residential schools as cultural genocide until 2015, after seven years of hearings and testimonies from thousands of witnesses. (The Guardian) 

In Canada, the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR) is a space that is working to preserve the records of human rights abuses from residential schools and promote continued research. They also provide a platform for education and dialogue and offer a space for residential school survivors, families, and communities to honour their stories. 

The NCTR has also issued calls to action for the government of Canada, including working with Aboriginal community leaders to inform the families of children’s burial locations and to respond to their wishes for appropriate commemoration ceremonies and markers, and reburial in home communities when requested. (NCTR)

Canada’s violent settler-colonial history is sadly not the only case of traumatic treatment of Indigenous peoples. Residential schools are one of the many racist and violent policies to have also existed in the United States, Australia, and New Zealand, to name a few. 

Several tribes, such as the Onion Lake Cree Nation and Lac La Ronge Indian Band, among others, have decided to continue searching for graves. (CBC CA) Their findings will continue to bring renewed grief and much needed answers to their community after many decades of silence from the Canadian government and its affiliates. 

The Residential Schools Crisis Line (1-866-925-4419) is an available resource for those experiencing distress and/or crisis. 

*Please note, Indigenous is an umbrella term and it is important to talk about groups and people using their chosen terminologies.