• The kind church again, this time in Canada

    From jon@21:1/5 to All on Fri Jul 9 04:59:04 2021
    From the late 1800s until 1996, Canada removed 150,000 Indigenous children
    from their homes and forced them into institutions run by church staff
    where they had to cut their long hair and were forbidden from speaking
    their language and practising their culture. Many were physically and
    sexually abused. Thousands of children are believed to have died.

    Canada’s goal was to kill Indigenous culture to make land and resources available to settlers. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), a years-long process documenting survivors’ stories, concluded the practice
    was cultural genocide.

    In 2016, the Canadian government identified more than 5,000 abusers, but
    to date, no individuals or institutions have faced charges under the
    Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act, a federal law passed in 2000.
    A small number of priests were charged with sexual assault, but none have
    faced charges for homicide, according to lawyers familiar with the matter.

    The recent discoveries of unmarked graves have spurred Indigenous groups
    and lawyers to demand that police lay criminal charges against the
    Canadian government, churches and individual perpetrators of crimes
    committed in the institutions.

    The Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC) is behind a push for
    criminal charges, while Phypers is working with a group of lawyers to
    encourage the International Criminal Court (ICC) to open an investigation
    into the institutions. But experts say their efforts could be stalled or thwarted by the Canadian government.

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