Warning: This story contains details that some readers may find disturbing.
The national head of the Assembly of Indigenous Peoples says the International Criminal Court should investigate the disappearance of Indigenous children from residential schools in Canada.
Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak said she supports the call from federally appointed independent MP Kimberley Murray special interlocutor We urge the ICC to reconsider its decision not to investigate missing children, unmarked graves and burial sites.
“Many of the people who actually caused this harm were never prosecuted,” Woodhouse-Nepinak told CBC News. “This is still painful for many survivors.”
The International Criminal Court (ICC) previously dismissed cases related to the residential school system, saying it only has jurisdiction over crimes that occurred after July 1, 2022.
In his final report, Murray argued that the ICC should reconsider because Indigenous children are still missing from their former facilities and the federal government has made no attempt to locate them or preserve their graves. .
“Canada does not provide communities with access to the records they need to determine where children were taken, where they died and where they were buried,” Murray said.
“And the church is not providing that information as freely as it should.”
Mr Murray said crimes against humanity occur almost every day in residential schools. She called for an investigation into the accounts of survivors who said they witnessed infants being burned in incinerators and medical experiments performed on children.
“What we heard from survivors was that they had needles inserted into their backs and spines, but they didn’t know what they were used for,” Murray said.
Jaime Batiste, parliamentary secretary to the minister for royal and indigenous relations, said he wanted to know who the ICC, which judges individuals rather than nations, would hold accountable.
Batiste, whose family includes boarding school survivors, said she believes the focus should instead be on healing within Indigenous communities.
“How do you prosecute a country?” said Mr Batiste, a Liberal MP from Sydney, Victoria. “I would like to focus my efforts on what we can do in this country as opposed to the international board.”
From the 1870s to 1997, more than 150,000 First Nations, Métis, and Inuit children were forced to attend government-funded boarding schools run by the church. As of 2021, the National Center for Truth and Reconciliation has recorded more than 4,100 child deaths in schools. school. The total number is likely to be even higher.
The ICC declined to be interviewed, but said in a statement that any person or entity from around the world can send information about suspected crimes to the ICC prosecutor.
Murray told CBC News he has sent the report to the ICC for consideration.
Legal experts say a state request would be a faster path to an investigation, which is why Murray said Canada should refer the matter to the ICC.
Justice Minister Arif Virani said the federal government had not yet conducted a full analysis of Murray’s report, but planned to respond soon.
Murray said there are still people alive who will be investigated, including those who directed the boarding school system and those responsible for cutting off access to documents.
He said the ICC could find that forced disappearances took place at boarding schools.
“It will go a long way in educating Canadians and giving survivors and communities a sense of responsibility and justice to get that discovery,” Murray said.
This could be a groundbreaking case
Mark Kersten, who worked in Murray’s office as an external researcher in international law from fall 2022 to spring 2024, said such a case would set a precedent.
Kersten said this is the first time that crimes against humanity involving enforced disappearances are considered ongoing crimes, which could set the conditions for whether families and communities should be considered victims. Ta.
“It would be absolutely groundbreaking,” said Kersten, an assistant professor of criminal justice at the University of the Fraser Valley in British Columbia.
Heidi Matthews, an assistant professor at York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto, said the case could face evidentiary hurdles.
Matthews said the ICC is intended to be a court of last resort, to be used when domestic jurisdictions are unwilling or unable to genuinely carry out their own investigations and prosecutions.
He said Canada could argue that its legal system is well-functioning and that there was no effort to protect individuals from criminal liability.
“None of that amounts to actual liability,” Matthews said. “What we have then is a system of minimization and partial recognition rather than actual accountability.”
Martha Sutherland began searching the grounds of the former St. Ann’s Indian Residential School in Fort Albany, Ont., this week. She is searching for the body of her uncle, Michael Sutherland, who was 13 years old when he disappeared from the institution along with two other children in 1941.
Sutherland said the ICC should get involved because boarding school victims have waited too long for action and cannot trust Canada to be held accountable.
“How can you expect anything from them?” [Canada’s] A unique judicial system to uncover the truth? That doesn’t work,” Sutherland said. “We need to take it to an international level.”
Support is available for those affected by the boarding school experience and those triggered by the latest reports.
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.
