Aboriginal child protection
This may differ at international, national, legal, cultural, social, professional and program levels from general or mainstream child protection services.
"In the second half of the twentieth century, removing children from their parents in order to change a people and a culture came to be recognized as an act of oppression, formally considered by the United Nations to be a form of genocide.
[7] Within countries, the expression of aboriginal child protection may be seen to be entangled with issues relating to the right of self-determination of indigenous peoples.
[10] Even without being specifically introduced into domestic law, international norms may have political effects especially in countries that actively espouse human rights.
Assimilative policies arose, regardless of whether colonization proceeded mainly by force as in the United States of America and Australia or by treaty as in Canada and New Zealand.
"[12] Versions of this principle refashioned aboriginal child protection in Western post-colonial democracies along lines shaped by constitutional responsibilities: state in Australia, federal in the United States, federal/provincial in Canada and national in New Zealand, with constitutionalized Treaties playing a pivotal role in New Zealand and an emerging role in Canada.
In Australia, “Traditionally, the Aboriginal family was a collaboration of clans composed of mothers, fathers, uncles, aunties, brothers, sisters, cousins and so on.
[20] Several generations of family life for many aboriginal peoples were devastated by a policy designed to "kill the Indian in the child" effectuated through a compulsory residential school program.
"[32] Indigenous peoples exercising the right of self-determination[33] have yet to make it fully effective in respect of aboriginal child protection.
[34][35] As of 2020, according to Innu Nation Grand Chief Gregory Rich, Natuashish and Sheshatshiu have a collective population of about 3,000 with about half of that being youths.
An independent review, A Long Wait for Change, was completed by the province's Child and Youth Advocate at the request of the Nunatsiavut government and released in 2019.
[36] The federal government passed Bill C-92, An Act Respecting First Nations, Inuit and Métis Children, Youth and Families in June 2019 coming into force on 1 January 2020.
[37][38][39] On 18 June 2021, Nunatsiavut stated that it had begun the process of seeking devolution of child protection services from the Newfoundland and Labrador Department of Children, Seniors, and Social Development with the goal for negotiations to conclude within three years.
The minority people … exercise autonomous rights, [are] masters in their own areas and administer the internal affairs of their ethnic group.
"[47] "Recent reform efforts in China's child welfare practices have focused on the importance of providing safe, permanent families for children in lieu of long-term institutional care.
In New Zealand, social services established with the Child Welfare Act in 1925 "displayed little regard for the extended kin networks of Māori children.
[51] "The report's recommendations, all accepted by the then Minister, focus[ed] upon the need for the department to function in a bicultural manner and to share responsibility and authority for decisions with appropriate Māori people.
"[53] In 1989, New Zealand Parliament passed the new ground-breaking Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act 1989, based on a philosophy of kinship care, that recognized "the importance of cultural identity in child protection policy."
[56] "In view of this new policy and the problems facing tribes as a result of the loss of their children, the Indian Child Welfare Act was enacted in 1978.
"[65] In Canada, a court noted that "such rules, whether they result from custom, tradition, agreement, or some other decision making process, are 'laws' in the Dicey constitutional sense.
[68] In Australia, "In his analysis of over 700 pieces of legislation, the legal historian John McCorquodale found no less than 67 different definitions of Aboriginal people.
[76] In 2003, the Supreme Court of Canada prescribed three similar criteria for determining who is a member of a Métis people,[77] reflecting the customary aboriginal definition (with the addition of objective verifiability, which was not an issue in the pre-colonial context).
The Tribunal is a permanent commission of inquiry charged with making recommendations on claims brought by Māori relating to actions or omissions of the Crown that breach the promises made in the Treaty of Waitangi.
