Forcible removal of children is recognised as a form of
genocide in international law. This is part of the 1948 Convention on the
Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide http://www.hrweb.org/legal/genocide.htmlas well as more recently made part of the 2007 United Nations Declaration of
the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, at Article 7(2) http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/DRIPS_en.pdf.
The international position on this practice is clear.
And so it is perhaps not surprising that Canada’s Truth and
Reconciliation Commission http://www.trc.ca/websites/trcinstitution/index.php?p=3has concluded that the forced removal of generations of Aboriginal
children to residential schools is
“cultural genocide.” http://www.trc.ca/websites/trcinstitution/File/2015/Exec_Summary_2015_06_25_web_o.pdfThe Summary of the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of
Canada explains the concept of “cultural genocide”:
Cultural
genocide is the destruction of those structures and practices that allow the
group to continue as a group. States that engage in cultural genocide set out
to destroy the political and social institutions of the targeted group. Land is
seized, and populations are forcibly transferred and their movement is
restricted. Languages are banned. Spiritual leaders are persecuted, spiritual
practices are forbidden, and objects of spiritual value are confiscated and
destroyed. And, most significantly to the issue at hand, families are disrupted
to prevent the transmission of cultural values and identity from one generation
to the next.
But what is the significance of
this finding? The term “cultural genocide” itself occupies a nebulous space
within international law, according to this news analysis of the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission findings. http://www.cbc.ca/news/aboriginal/cultural-genocide-label-for-residential-schools-has-no-legal-implications-expert-says-1.3110826.
The question of “where do we go from here?” is addressed in this video from the
Truth and Reconciliation Commission website. http://www.trc.ca/websites/trcinstitution/index.php?p=3
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