Canadian Investigation Finds Many Children at Church-Run Schools Suffered Starvation, Violence and Sexual Abuse

A six-year Canadian investigation, led by Judge Murray Sekler, confirmed that Canadian authorities had committed acts that could be described as cultural extermination against Aboriginal Canadians, according to one report. Sekler said the acts amounted to systematic cultural extermination. The report states that some 150,000 Aboriginal children were taken from their families and sent to church-run schools.

A second report, from BBC News Mundo, gives a longer timeframe, saying that from 1863 to 1998 more than 150,000 indigenous children were separated from their families and taken to state boarding schools in Canada. The first report says these practices continued until the 1990s, when indigenous children were prevented from speaking their language or choosing their religion. The two reports differ on the end date but agree that the removals affected a very large number of children over several decades.

The reports also differ on who operated the schools. The BBC report says the schools were run by the government and operated mostly by the Catholic Church as part of a policy to assimilate indigenous children. It cites the Society of Survivors of Indigenous Residential Schools as saying the Catholic Church operated up to 70 per cent of the 130 boarding schools. The first report says the investigation found that the school owners had committed immoral acts and that many children were subjected to starvation, violence and sexual abuse. The BBC report says minors were not allowed to speak their language or practise their culture, and that many were abused.

The BBC report recounts individual experience, noting that one man entered a boarding school in Manitoba in 1966 at age five and was separated from his parents and relatives. It also reports that the remains of 215 children who had been students at the Kamloops Indian Residential School were discovered. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission described the government-led policy as cultural genocide. Protecting children who cannot protect themselves is the point at which the record of these removals becomes a matter of public accountability (Proverbs 31:8-9).

The BBC report estimates that about 6,000 children died while in boarding schools and that many were buried in unnamed graves. The first report’s findings on starvation, violence and sexual abuse come from the investigation as summarized in that report, and the BBC report’s account of abuse is more general.

The first report also includes material about Australia that is separate from the Canadian findings. Amnesty International condemned the Australian government’s failure to protect indigenous children and called for action to prevent what it called an epidemic. Amnesty reported that indigenous Australian children aged 10 to 17 were 26 times more likely to be imprisoned, making up 59% of that age group in prison while being 5% of the population.