we will update as we publish at AMERICAN INDIAN ADOPTEES WEBSITE - some issues with blogger are preventing this
Friday, September 30, 2016
Forced sterilization of 272,000 indigenous women 'not a crime against humanity': Public Prosecutor
Wednesday, September 28, 2016
SOLD! Adoptive U.S. parents paid thousands for Indigenous Manitoba children #60sScoop
Indigenous children for sale: The money behind the Sixties Scoop
It left her feeling worthless.
"They told me I should feel grateful they paid anything for me at all," Orgeron said. "I felt so guilty."
It's the latest revelation in a story survivors say has haunted them for decades: the money behind the Sixties Scoop.
The scoop, as it is called, refers to the era from the 1960s to the 1980s, when child welfare authorities scooped up Indigenous children and adopted them out to non-Indigenous families.
Those placed in homes outside the country weren't just adopted out of their Indigenous homes and into mostly white American families. They were bought and paid for.
"It hurts so much, but I have waited so many years for someone to finally talk about this," said Dianne Fast, whose brother Willy was seized from their Eriksdale, Man., home and adopted by a couple in Indiana.
His value? Fast said her brother went for $10,000.
"His mother used to say she owned him."
Carla Williams, also from Manitoba, was adopted by a family in Holland for $6,400.
Manitoba twins Diane and Debra ended up in Pennsylvania. They said they were valued at $10,000 as a pair.
Wayne Snellgrove calls it human trafficking.
"[My adoptive parents] paid a lot of money for me," said Snellgrove, who started out in foster care.
"They farmed us out to an [American] adoption agency and then they sold me."
'It sickened me'
Williams said the thought of the transactions is revolting."It sickened me," she said.
Barbara Tremitiere was surprised to hear this. Now retired, during the 1970s, she was an adoption worker with the Pennsylvania-based Tressler Lutheran Home for Children.
They worked hard to find homes for children with "special needs," she said. Canadian Indigenous children were deemed special needs.
"Because you didn't want them," Tremitiere said. "I was once told by a native person from [Manitoba], on one of the reservations ... 'we passed on to you what we didn't want.' And they were probably right."
The agency fees to adopt Indigenous kids from Manitoba weren't high — under $2,000, Tremitiere said.
The Children's Bureau of New Orleans charged close to $4,000. The executive director at the time called it a "great deal" for Manitoba taxpayers, who would no longer have to foot the bill for Indigenous kids in provincial care.
At the time, the U.S. also was promoting Indigenous adoptions, pulling children from their reservations and placing them in white families to assimilate them.
'Hands off our children'
Ernie Daniels, then chief of Long Plain First Nation, called it genocide. He was stunned to see newspaper ads from U.S. adoption agencies recruiting "Indian" kids from Manitoba."I told them to keep their hands off our children," Daniels told CBC News.
His pleas fell on deaf ears south of the border, but they gained traction in Manitoba.
By1982, the province ordered a moratorium on out-of-province adoption of Indigenous children. Soon after, an inquiry was launched into the child welfare system and its effect on Indigenous families.
It's estimated more than 25 per cent of all Indigenous children placed for adoption were placed in homes outside the province. Hundreds ended up in the United States; many are still trying to find their way home.
"It doesn't even feel like this body belongs to me," said Williams. "I'm lost. I'm really lost."
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Adoptee, Author, Mosaic Artist, Blogger, wildly curious
Monday, September 26, 2016
$1.3 billion in damages: #60sScoop get their day in court
August 23, 2016
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Michelle Siu
Thousands of First Nations, Métis
and Inuit across Canada who were ripped from their homes as children are
getting their day in court after a years-long struggle in what has become known
as the “Sixties Scoop,” a painful, but little-understood chapter of Canadian
history.
The so-called scoop happened between
the 1960s and the 1980s and saw thousands of aboriginal children taken from
their homes by child-welfare service workers and placed with mostly
non-aboriginal families. In some cases, children were sent to live with
families in other provinces, the United States and the U.K., often without the
consent of their parents.
A
legacy of ‘cultural genocide’
The fallout from the practice has
negatively impacted generations of aboriginal Canadians.
The final Truth and Reconciliation Commission report stated “the effects of the residential school
experience and the Sixties Scoop have adversely affected parenting skills and
the success of many Aboriginal families.”
“By the end of the 1970s, the
transfer of children from residential schools was nearly complete in Southern
Canada, and the impact of the Sixties Scoop was in evidence across the
country,” the TRC said.
“In 1977, Aboriginal children
accounted for 44 per cent of the children in care in Alberta, 51 per cent
of
the children in care in Saskatchewan, and 60 per cent of the children in care
in Manitoba.”
The “Sixties Scoop” has not received
the same attention as another dark chapter in Canada’s history: the issue of
residential schools. And unlike survivors of the residential school system,
adults who went through the Sixties Scoop have never received an apology from
the federal government. Last June, the Manitoba government
formally apologized to those affected.
Marcia Brown Martel, a member of the
Temagami First Nation near Kirkland Lake, Ont., was taken by child welfare
officials and adopted by a non-native family as a child.
Martel has described what happened
to her and thousands of others as “cultural genocide.”
“I lost everything, including my name. I lost my family. I lost my language. I lost everything about my culture,” Martel told The Canadian Press. “This should never have happened. It was wrong.”
Dozens of supporters rallied outside
a Toronto courtroom Tuesday where an Ontario Superior Court judge will hear
opening arguments for a summary judgment in a class action lawsuit against the
federal government by survivors of the Sixties Scoop.
At the heart of the Ontario lawsuit,
is a federal-provincial arrangement in which Ontario child welfare services
placed as many as 16,000 aboriginal children with non-native families from
December 1965 to December 1984.
The claim, which has not been proven
in court, alleges the children suffered a devastating loss of cultural identity
that the federal government should have protected. The suit alleges plaintiffs
suffered emotional, psychological and spiritual harm from the lost connection
to their aboriginal heritage.
They are seeking $1.3 billion in damages, or
$85,000 for each affected person.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs will
argue they have enough evidence to forego a trial and prove that Canada had an
obligation in law to ensure that indigenous children removed from their homes
retain their cultural identity and heritage.
Tuesday’s hearing comes after seven
years of delays due to appeals by the federal government, which has fought the
claim since it was launched in 2009.
“Today I stand with the survivors of
the Ontario Sixties Scoop as they fight for justice and acknowledgement after
decades of heartache,” said AFN National Chief Perry Bellegarde, in a
statement. “Survivors of the Sixties Scoop deserve just resolution and
restitution without further delay. The federal government said recently
that they would prefer to resolve this issue outside the courtroom. If
they are serious then they should work with survivors of the Sixties Scoop to
get a respectful, acceptable process in place.”
Calls
on Ottawa to recognize an ‘immense wrong’
A number of indigenous leaders
called on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in an open letter
to resolve the issue without further delay and to “recognize and right an
immense wrong — with both words and deeds.”
“This case is about Canadian values
– past, present and future,” the letter says. “This moment is an opportunity
for Canada to put an ugly legacy behind us, for the government to take steps to
reform its conduct so that the injustice does not continue and build a better
future for all. It’s a chance to open the door for future generations to grow
up healthy and proud of who they are.”
Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett
has said she wants to see the lawsuit over the Sixties Scoop taken out of
court.
“We, as you know — as a government —
would like to get things out of court and to a table where we can make those
kinds of agreements together, as a way forward,” Bennett told reporters in
Winnipeg in August.
“We want to work together with all
of the litigants that are presently in court and try and get to the table.”
*With files from the Canadian Press
Adoptee, Author, Mosaic Artist, Blogger, wildly curious
Thursday, September 15, 2016
California Supreme Court Denies Review in In re Alexandria P. (Choctaw ICWA Case)
NICWA Supports Safe Transition in California ICWA Case
Being a foster parent is a hard, selfless,
honorable role. We have great compassion and appreciation for the
amazing people who open their homes and lives to vulnerable children at
the time when they need love, stability, and support the most. And while
we feel deep sympathy for what the Page family is going through during
this difficult time, it was regrettable and disturbing to observe the
media spectacle witnessed yesterday, which stands in stark contrast to
best practice that ensures a child's safe transition in such
circumstances.
Transitioning a child from a foster care
placement to family should be done in a manner that creates the least
amount of unnecessary trauma for a child. This is why such matters are
kept private--because child development experts and families understand
it is in the child's best interest to do so.
Court transcripts indicate the Pages were
aware since 2011 that their foster daughter had loving relatives wanting
to welcome her into their home and reunite her with her siblings, one
of whom she will now live with. As with most foster placements, where
reunification with siblings and family is the stated objective, the Page
family understood her placement was to be temporary.
Despite this and numerous court rulings
dating back to 2013, they chose to reject the consensus of the court,
the county child welfare agency, the child's parent, her court-appointed
attorney, and her tribe, who all agreed it was in her best interest to
be with her sister and family.
Now she is with family. Court documents
elaborate on the longstanding and close relationship her relatives have
with her; they explain that she has long known them as "family from
Utah." These are not strangers. These are family members who she knows
well.
We understand the difficulty of accepting
the temporary nature of foster parenting, but it is imperative we focus
on supporting a safe transition. Today, this child is with her sister
and other family members who have been waiting five long years to
welcome this child into their home.
Read more HERE
Labels:
#Baby Alexandria,
Choctaw Father,
Kate Fort,
Turtle Talk
Adoptee, Author, Mosaic Artist, Blogger, wildly curious
Wednesday, September 14, 2016
Vancouver Island couple lose appeals to adopt Metis toddler
A British Columbia foster family has lost its fight in the province’s
highest court to adopt a Metis toddler in an emotional saga that has
pitted the importance of indigenous heritage against that of blood
relatives.
The B.C. Court of Appeal has dismissed two appeals launched by the Vancouver Island couple, who hoped to stop the Ministry of Children and Family Development from moving the little girl to Ontario to live with her biological siblings, who she has never met.
The foster mom is Metis while the adoptive parents in Ontario are not, and the B.C. couple had argued the girl’s aboriginal background should take precedence. The girl, who is nearly three, has been in the couple’s care since two days after birth.
But a five-judge panel ruled unanimously in a written decision released Tuesday that both the couple’s appeals of earlier B.C. Supreme Court decisions must be dismissed.
“(The foster parents) face an insurmountable hurdle to achieving the relief sought,” the ruling says. “The adoption scheme in British Columbia does not provide for adoption of a child by foster parents at the behest of a court….”
KEEP READING
The B.C. Court of Appeal has dismissed two appeals launched by the Vancouver Island couple, who hoped to stop the Ministry of Children and Family Development from moving the little girl to Ontario to live with her biological siblings, who she has never met.
The foster mom is Metis while the adoptive parents in Ontario are not, and the B.C. couple had argued the girl’s aboriginal background should take precedence. The girl, who is nearly three, has been in the couple’s care since two days after birth.
But a five-judge panel ruled unanimously in a written decision released Tuesday that both the couple’s appeals of earlier B.C. Supreme Court decisions must be dismissed.
“(The foster parents) face an insurmountable hurdle to achieving the relief sought,” the ruling says. “The adoption scheme in British Columbia does not provide for adoption of a child by foster parents at the behest of a court….”
KEEP READING
Sunday, September 11, 2016
Native Americans Descended From A Single Ancestral Group, DNA Study Confirms
Native Americans Descended From A Single Ancestral Group, DNA Study Confirms: For two decades, researchers have been using a growing volume of genetic data to debate whether ancestors of Native Americans emigrated to the New World in one wave or successive waves, or from one ancestral Asian population or a number of different populations. Now, after painstakingly comparing DNA samples from people in dozens of modern-day Native American and Eurasian groups, an international team of scientists thinks it can put the matter to rest: virtually without exception, the new evidence supports the single ancestral population theory.
Adoptee, Author, Mosaic Artist, Blogger, wildly curious
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