Child Welfare, Indigenous Children and Children’s Rights in Canada

Allyson Stevenson

doi:10.1590/2179-8966/2019/40639

Abstract

Abstract In Canada, Indigenous children have been removed from their families and communities for residential schooling and for adoption and fostering by the state. These historic and ongoing policies have contributed to a general lack of awareness and respect for the rights of Indigenous children as children, as well as Indigenous rights bearers. This paper examines the ways in which historic Indigenous transracial adoption projects acted as a means of public education for ignorance, and argues there is an urgent need for increased public and academic attention to Indigenous children’s rights as both universal children’s rights and Indigenous rights.

Highlights

In recent years, Canada has been taken to task both nationally and internationally for the poor conditions that Indigenous children experience.[1]
In Canada, Indigenous children have been removed from their families and communities for residential schooling and for adoption and fostering by the state
This paper examines the ways in which historic Indigenous transracial adoption projects acted as a means of public education for ignorance, and argues there is an urgent need for increased public and academic attention to Indigenous children’s rights as both universal children’s rights and Indigenous rights

Summary

The History of Indigenous Transracial Adoption

Modern adoption is one of the innovations pioneered and managed by professional social workers in the twentieth century, it was not until the post-war period that Indigenous children were considered “adoptable.”[29] Prior to the 1950’s, social workers did not consider Native American children serious candidates for adoption since government officials responsible for Native Americans primarily placed orphaned, abandoned or needy children in boarding schools. “ultimate solution” (final solution?) to the Indian problem since it provided cost savings, socialization in white homes, separated children from contact with families with legal severance and geographical distance.[35] Lyslo and others had successfully created a new demand for Native American children with the carefully crafted narrative that publicized the adoption project as a benevolent, and humanitarian response to a pressing, but previously unacknowledged need. Indian and Métis children were most frequently removed due to the catch-all category of “neglect.” Karen Swift argues that “the legalization of child welfare continually reinforces the idea of neglect as a personal problem rather than as the visible appearance of underlying social relations.”[45] As mothers sought our services for support, they likewise invited the scrutiny of social workers into their homes.

Adopt Indian and Métis

Findings

References bibliográficas