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Aboriginal Children’s Rights By Fay Zoccole
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Page 1: Aboriginal Children’s Rights

Aboriginal Children’s Rights

By Fay Zoccole

Page 2: Aboriginal Children’s Rights

Chapter 11

Aboriginal Children’s RightsIs Canada Keeping it’s

Promise?

Marilyn Bennett

Canada’s Rights in CanadaA Question of Commitment

Page 3: Aboriginal Children’s Rights

A young girl will continue to be sexually abused because substance abuse has taken hold of her family...

An baby boy will continue to be neglected because the only social worker has too many cases, enough for 10 workers...

A depressed teen develops a drug problem and ends up in jail because there is no place for him to go for help and no to help him stay in school...

A culture will die slowly and invisibly if we fail to protect and ensure the rights of our children...

In Canada, today...

Page 4: Aboriginal Children’s Rights

Intro...

Canada-Best country to live in-High life expectancy

-High standard of living -Low level of internal conflict

-High school enrolment

Aboriginal People-Dominion

-Discrimination-Displacement-Discrimination

-Extreme Poverty-Colonization-Assimilation

Page 5: Aboriginal Children’s Rights

Intro... Today we will discuss:

•Which social problems?

•Historical Context

•Key Issues for Aboriginal Children and Families

•High suicide rates for Aboriginal People

•The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

•The erosion of Children’s rights through the Indian Act

•Bill C-31

•Effects of Poverty

•Conclusion

Page 6: Aboriginal Children’s Rights

Put yourself in the spot...

What kind of social problems would you have?

Page 7: Aboriginal Children’s Rights

Historical Context...

1. Residential School System• Reject language, heritage and families• Parents forgot how to parent responsibly

2. Child and Welfare Services

3. Social manifestations

4. Violation of human rights

Page 8: Aboriginal Children’s Rights

120 First Nation child welfare agencies

Challenge: Adapt services that reflect holistic, interdependent, and communal rights framework of the cultural communities

Concepts of “child removal” or apprehensions are foreign due to Communal child rearing during times of stress

Western System of child care removal was only to be used to respond to isolated incidents of child maltreatment.

Key Issues for Aboriginal Children and Families

Page 9: Aboriginal Children’s Rights

25,000 Aboriginal children are in the child welfare: 3x more then those who attended residential school

71.5% of these children have special needs 3/4s of these children become permanent

wards and never go home

Data

Page 10: Aboriginal Children’s Rights

Sara’s mom is a single mother. Sara is in grade 2. She was held back a couple

years because of her maturity. So far, Sara has attended school and has a

paraprofessional to help her in school to get around. There are no Spec. Ed. at Sara’s school. The teacher does not make any adaptations for

Sara’s assignments. She gets the same work that everybody else gets.

What would you do if you were Sara’s mom and you living on the reserve without any resources?

Sarah’s Case

Page 11: Aboriginal Children’s Rights

Sara’s Aunt and Uncle moved to Toronto.

Sara’s mom made arrangements for the Aunt and Uncle to foster Sara in Toronto.

Sara’s aunt and uncle have help her adjust and live in the city.

Sara attends a Special Education for the Blind in Toronto and is getting her needs met.

Sara’s mom makes the effort to call her and plans to visit her every 4 months at least.

Sara’s Case

Page 12: Aboriginal Children’s Rights

The impact of historical policies and the need for Aboriginal solutions are also in high suicide rates among First Nation youth.

Pikangikum:

Weagamow/North Caribou:

High suicide rates for Aboriginal people

Page 13: Aboriginal Children’s Rights

From the Reserve

Kaila is 10 months old

Recommended by doctors that he have a liver transplant.

Parents do not agree due to traditional beliefs

Does “Child and Family Services” have the right apprehend Kaila and over-ride parent’s original decision to reject transplant?

Kaila Will Paulette

Page 14: Aboriginal Children’s Rights

From a First Nation Community in Saskatchewan Kaila is 10 months old Parents bring him to hospital because of bruising on his skin Pediatric gastroenterologist informed the parents that their son’s only chance of survival would be

to receive a liver transplant. 70%-75% chance of survival in the first year. Post-transplant, dropping to 60-65% after 5 years. The parents were a well-informed.

Parents were articulate and understood the potential benefits and risks of their son undergoing a transplant (assuming an organ became available).

After much soul searching, the parents decided to forgo the transplant specifically due to cultural beliefs.

Also the parents had serious concerns about the potential long-term effects of the immunosuppressive drugs on their child and took the view that his body would be “like a war zone” for the rest of his life.

The pediatric gastroenterologist consulted by the parents believed that the parents’ decision to deny their son the possibility of a liver transplant was unreasonable. He notified the local child welfare agency, and the department of social services petitioned the court to temporarily apprehend the child so that consent could be obtained for a transplant.

The parents took their two children and fled the jurisdiction until the matter could be settled in court.

A judge heard testimony from both the parents of K’aila as well as several specialist physicians. Despite the initial

physician’s determination that a liver transplant was in the child’s best interest, all expert witnesses did not support this.

Other testifying physicians stated that they could not fault the decision of the parents, given the uncertain course of the surgery as well as the potential severe and long-term effects of the necessary immunosuppressive drugs.

The judge denied the petition of the social services agency, and the parents returned home with their children. K’aila died peacefully in his mother’s arms 6 weeks after this ruling.

Kaila Will Paulette

Page 15: Aboriginal Children’s Rights

Jordan's Principle is a child first principle to resolve jurisdictional disputes within, and between governments, regarding payment for government services provided to First Nations children.

Under this principle, where a jurisdictional dispute arises between two government parties (provincial/territorial or federal) or between two departments or ministries of the same government, regarding payment for services for a Status Indian child which are otherwise available to other Canadian children, the government or ministry/department of first contact must pay for the services without delay or disruption. The paying government party can then refer the matter to jurisdictional dispute mechanisms.

In Canada, there is a lack of clarity between the federal and provincial/territorial governments around who should pay for government services for First Nations children even when the services is normally available to other children.

Too often the practice was for the governments to deny or delay the child's receipt of a service(s) pending resolution of the payment dispute.

Jordan’s Principal

Page 16: Aboriginal Children’s Rights

Jordan's Principle applies to all government services and states that when a jurisdictional dispute arises, the government of first contact with the child must fund the service and then resolve the jurisdictional dispute later.

Jordan's principle is reflective of the non-discrimination provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and Canadian domestic law that does not allow differential treatment on the basis of race or ethnic origin.

Private Members Motion 296 in support of Jordan's Principle was passed unanimously in the House of Commons on December 12, 2007.

Some provinces have partially implemented Jordan's Principle in the area of children with complex medical needs but more work needs to be done to eliminate the impact of jurisdictional disputes on First Nations children's access to all government services.

Jordan’s Principal

Page 17: Aboriginal Children’s Rights

Jordan's Principle was established in response to the death of 5-year-old Jordan River Anderson, a child from Norway House First Nation who suffered from Carey Fineman Ziter Syndrome, a rare muscular disorder that required years of medical treatment in a Winnipeg hospital.

After spending the first two years of his life in a hospital, doctors felt he could return home. However, the federal and provincial government could not resolve who was financially responsible for the necessary home care in order for Jordan to return to his family in his home community 800 kilometres north of Winnipeg.

After spending over two years in hospital unnecessarily while governments argued over who should pay for his at home care, Jordan died in hospital in 2005.

Jordan’s Principal

Page 18: Aboriginal Children’s Rights

The CRC provides as a framework to improve, promote, and protect the basic human rights of all children

1. Non-discrimination which means that states commit themselves to respect and ensure the rights of all children in their jurisdiction without discrimination of any kind;

2. The “best interests of the child” which means that the interests of the child are recognized as paramount and that budgetary allocations should give priority to children and to the safekeeping of their rights;

3. Respect for children’s views and for their rights to participate in all aspects of democratic society which asserts that children are not passive recipients but active contributors to the decisions that affect their lives

4. The children’s right to survival and development which claims the right for children to realize their fullest potential through a range of strategies, from meeting their health, nutrition, and education needs to supporting their personal and social development

The UN Convention on the rights of the child

Page 19: Aboriginal Children’s Rights

Findings indicate that First Nation children continue to experience unacceptable and disproportionate levels of risk across all the identified dimensions and that polices developed by the government to redress these risks remain largely unimplemented.

Canada clearly falls short in its treatment of Aboriginal children.

How? Aboriginal peoples continue to live far below the standard of living of the general Canadian population. Whether they are living on or off reserve, Aboriginal children’s living conditions fall far short of those promise in the CRC.

How is Canada doing?

Page 20: Aboriginal Children’s Rights

How do you think the Indian Act oppresses and discriminates First Nation children?

The Erosion of Children’s Rights through the Indian Act

Page 21: Aboriginal Children’s Rights

DEFINES who is and who is not a STATUS INDIAN and therefore entitled to specific rights that arise from the historical relationship between Aboriginal peoples and Canadian government.

CREATES divisions between Aboriginal peoples in and effort to restrict the number of Aboriginal peoples fro whom Canada will exercises certain obligations

DIMINISHES the rights of future generations of Aboriginal children.

The Indian Act...

Page 22: Aboriginal Children’s Rights

Drawn up in 1985 to try and stop this discrimination against first Nation women.

Bill C-31

Native woman + white men= Native women lose ALL status rights *Children did not have status rights

Native men + White women = White women became status.*Children had full status rights.

Page 23: Aboriginal Children’s Rights

The social economic conditions experienced by many on-reserve First Nations people are similar to those experienced by families in developing countries.

Pervasive poverty, substandard housing conditions, widespread alcohol and solvent abuse involving adults and children, and high suicide rates among youth are the resultant stark realities.

The Debilitating Effects of Poverty on the Rights of Aboriginal Children

Aboriginal families experience an extremely high rate of hardship. Aboriginal families were characterized by ...less housing and greater dependence on social assistance, rates of alcohol and drug abuse, and being investigated more often for neglect or emotional maltreatment

Page 24: Aboriginal Children’s Rights

All Aboriginal children continue to suffer disproportionately from high levels of child abuse and sexual exploitation and from a a child welfare system that fails to adequately protect them through culturally appropriate services.

Aboriginal child welfare agencies should be given the resources and the funding to ensure that they rights of Aboriginal children under their care and jurisdiction are upheld and respected.

Conclusion...

Page 25: Aboriginal Children’s Rights

The END