Warning: This article mentions child abuse in boarding schools.
Kimberley Murray has started an uncomfortable but long-overdue conversation about justice for Canada’s “disappeared” residential school children, Indigenous leaders say.
Murray, a special interlocutor on missing children and unmarked graves in boarding schools, received a standing ovation when he released his final two-volume report in Gatineau, Kenya, on Tuesday.
The report is more than 1,000 pages long, but Murray’s most important finding is that the children who died and were buried at boarding schools were not missing, but were disappeared by the state.
As a result, they become victims of “enforced disappearance,” which is a crime against humanity under international law, said Murray, a lawyer and member of Kanehasatake, a Kanien’kehaka (Mohican) community northwest of Montreal.
“This is an uncomfortable truth,” said Cindy Woodhouse-Nepinak, national director of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN), but a necessary one.
“It took a long time for that to happen, and it’s been hidden for a very long time,” she told CBC News.
Rather than a recommendation, Murray concludes: her report She lists 42 legal, moral, and ethical obligations that governments, churches, and other institutions must uphold.
One of the mandates calls on the federal government to appoint an expert committee to consider the possibility of returning residential school facilities, which has attracted the attention of heads of state.
“Returning land to Indigenous people and working towards returning that land to Indigenous people is progress,” Woodhouse-Nepinak said.
Murray’s duties include referring cases of enforced disappearances of children to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands.
Natan Obed, president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, told Wednesday’s gathering that he is most interested in this call for Canada to follow international processes.
“If Canada wants to stand tall and tall in international affairs and maintain its position as a nation-state that abides by the rule of law and values its people, then Canada must comply with any standards it may fall short of. “You have to understand, ‘It’s a responsibility,'” he said.
Former AFN national president Ovide Mercredi also reiterated his emphasis on accountability in his speech at Wednesday’s rally.
“Let’s go international,” declared Mr. Mercredi, a lawyer who led the Assembly of Indigenous Peoples from 1991 to 1997.
“Use the vehicles that are there. Even if you are denied access, just go there.”
“Settler’s Amnesty”
In his brief, Murray said a “culture of settler amnesty and impunity” has protected perpetrators and safeguarded state responsibility.
Obed said: “The concept of settler amnesty is a long overdue discussion in this country, one that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission has often had to tiptoe around, but now in 2024, we is a concept that can be tackled head-on.”
The federal government appointed Mr Murray during a national reckoning in 2022 following the discovery of a possible unmarked grave on the site of a former boarding school.
Justice Minister Arif Virani, who received the report directly, offered a personal response as a parent but said he would not make any commitments until it was thoroughly reviewed.
“The children are not being heard,” Virani told reporters, his voice thick with emotion. “It’s a story about people being abused, young girls getting pregnant, their babies being taken away and burned, and there’s no response.”
The federal government estimates that approximately 150,000 children attended boarding schools. The boarding schools are a government-funded, church-run system of assimilation that has operated nationwide for more than a century.
Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission concluded in 2015 that this system is a central element of Canada’s policy of cultural genocide. As of 2021, more than 4,100 school deaths have been recorded.
“A great contribution”
Mark Kersten, an assistant professor at the University of the Fraser Valley, says the question of whether someone can be prosecuted for enforced disappearance is difficult to answer.
Kersten, who focused on international criminal law and helped prepare the Murray report, said no international tribunal had prosecuted enforced disappearances, a crime against humanity that is regularly committed. .
“I think this is a very serious case under international human rights law,” Kersten said.
“In international criminal law, these arguments have not been tested so far and need to be tested.”
the current18:43Report on unmarked graves in boarding schools calls for new laws and compensation
It’s been three years since Indigenous leaders from Kamloops, Cowess and other First Nations revealed hundreds of unmarked graves at the site of a boarding school. Kimberley Murray, appointed Special Independent Interlocutor on Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites Associated with Indian Residential Schools, shares her new report and the work Canada’s education agencies must do. I will talk about 42 obligations that you must not do.
Fanny LaFontaine, Canada Research Chair in International Criminal Justice and Human Rights, told Wednesday’s gathering that Murray has made a “significant contribution” to the legal language surrounding residential school abuse.
Lafontaine worked on controversial works Legal analysis of genocide Created by the 2019 National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
Noting that backlash, genocide usually involves physical extermination, but also the destruction of people as separate social units, such as forced sterilization and the forcible transfer of children from one group to another. She said it could include acts intended to do something.
LaFontaine said during the panel discussion that Murray’s report reveals “how past and ongoing violence in Canada amounts to genocide, crimes against humanity and enforced disappearance.” said.
Murray used to A historical report has been publishedis included in her final report, outlining what she calls “evidence of genocide” and urging the public to consider it and draw their own conclusions from it.
A national Indian Residential School Crisis Line has been established to provide support to former students and those affected. People can access emotional and crisis referral services by calling the 24-hour National Crisis Line at 1-866-925-4419.
Mental health counseling and crisis support is also available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, through the Hope for Wellness hotline at 1-855-242-3310 or online chat at www.hopeforwellness.ca.
