So, it seems that the Inuit in the territories have a ‘physical and sexual assault’ epidemic and, of course, it’s being presented as “an example of how the legacies of the residential school system and colonialism continue to impact the lives of ‘Indigenous’ people today”.
Without accountability, their lives won’t improve.
Providing them with excuses just undermines accountability…
“More than half of women and men in the territories have experienced at least one sexual or physical assault since age 15, according to a ‘Statistics Canada’ report released this week.
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/201202/dq201202a-eng.htm
“While the statistic is “incredibly alarming”, it’s not a surprise to Malcolm Ranta, the executive director of Ilisaqsivik, a community wellness organization in Clyde River, Nunavut. Nor does he believe it tells the whole story; he says the rates of violence in the territories are probably higher than reported.
“The reason why I say that I think these stats are low is because this is just people who are reporting”,
Ranta said.
“There’s a significant part of the population who will not engage no matter what with any of these systems because of the terrible things that have happened to them…”
“It’s an example of how the legacies of the residential school system and colonialism continue to impact the lives of ‘Indigenous’ {sic, ‘Aboriginal’} people today, community members say, and they directly connect to contemporary issues such as addiction, poverty, precarious housing and family violence.
“They are also the root causes of people’s distrust of government institutions and authorities as well as ‘systemic racism’ in the health-care, justice and child welfare systems.
“It’s not just the residential schools”,
Ranta said.
“There was the day schools {Where they were taught to read and write}, there was the dog slaughter, there was tuberculosis, where they were ripping kids away from their families and sending them to a sanatorium on their own at four years old.
{EVERYONE in the North – NOT just Aboriginals – were shipped south TO WHERE THE HOSPITALS WERE!}
“All of these massive colonial policies that impacted Inuit in the North. We see the impacts today.”
“The rate of violence is significantly higher in the territories when compared to the provinces — 39% of women and 35% of men reported having been assaulted since age 15…
“The ‘Statistics Canada’ report, released Wednesday, is compiled from a survey conducted in 2018 on gender-based violence in Canada. It asked respondents if they experienced physical and sexual assault since age 15 regardless of whether they reported the incident to the police or not. It does not include spousal or intimate partner violence {!}.
“The report says in the majority of cases, men were the perpetrators of violence and generally, that person acted alone.
“Across all three territories, women (39%) were three times as likely as men (12%) to report having experienced sexual assault since age 15. ‘LGBTQ2+’ {sic} women, women who experienced childhood violence and women with a physical or mental disability were all at greater risk of experiencing assault.
“Men were more likely to be targeted by strangers. More than half of men (53%) who experienced physical assault said it was by someone they didn’t know or knew only by sight. In contrast, 34% of women physically assaulted and 42% of women sexually assaulted in the 12 months preceding the survey said it was by someone they did not know.
“Many communities in the North suffer from inadequate services and resources due to their remoteness, especially for people in crisis. In Clyde River, an Inuit hamlet of about 1,000 people on the shore of Baffin Island’s Patricia Bay, there is no safe house, shelter, hospital or addiction treatment centre…
{‘Remote Reserves Not Working’ {September 24, 2018}:
“Clusters of native people living on unforgiving land, far from urban centres, yet asked by their leaders to be treated as ‘nations’.”
https://endracebasedlaw.ca/2018/09/24/remote-reserves-not-working/
‘Moving is the only hope’ {June 23, 2016}:
“The Assembly of ‘First Nations’ regional Chief for Ontario blasted former ‘Liberal’ Prime Minister Jean Chretien for suggesting some northern ‘First Nations’ may have no other hope left except to move away. The former prime minister made the statement after he was asked by reporters about what he would do about the Attawapiskat crisis…”
https://endracebasedlawcanadanews.wordpress.com/2016/06/23/moving-is-the-only-hope/ }
“Natanine and his council colleagues receive a monthly report from the RCMP and said most of the violence in the community is connected to alcohol. People often drink to deal with the pain of ‘intergenerational trauma’ or trauma they themselves experienced in the residential school system.
{Oh, just stop! They need Alcoholics Anonymous, not B.S. excuses!}
“Something we hear often is the residential school ‘survivors’ {The pejorative term for ‘former students’}, they learned a lot of new violence when they went to residential school … And a lot of the time they don’t talk about what they experienced. It’s all bottled up inside”,
Natanine said.
“It shows through violence and general unhappiness.”
{Aboriginals ran the Residential schools from the early 1970s until the last one closed in 1996. Most so-called ‘survivors’ still alive would have attended during those years..}
“Physical and sexual abuse was rampant in the residential school system, and children were often disciplined violently. Natanine, who is himself a residential school ‘survivor’ but said he was fortunate to have had a good experience {! Like most…}, believes this contributed to a normalization of violence.
“Because that’s all they knew, they just accepted it”.
“Natanine said one of the most damaging impacts of colonialism was separating his people from their culture. He strives to help people reconnect with traditions such as hunting and being out on the land, but said the price of outdoor equipment {Ski-Doos} is a major barrier.
{You don’t hunt by traditional methods? If you did, why would you need pricey equipment?}
“In Yukon, which had the highest rates of sexual or physical assault out of the territories with 61% of women and men having reported an incident since age 15, there are similar challenges.
“We don’t have a sexual assault crisis centre in the Yukon … we don’t even have a suicide crisis line, we don’t have a mental health crisis line that is available 24/7”,
said Ketsia Houde-McLennan, executive director of ‘Yukon Women’s Transition Home’ in Whitehorse.
“The situation is improving, but not fast enough. In March of this year, SART, or the sexual assault response team, was established in Yukon. SART connects people experiencing sexual assault with a network of services including a 24/7 confidential support line, but before that, the ‘Women’s Transition Home’ crisis line was their only option, Houde-McLennan said.
“The second wave of the COVID-19 ‘pandemic’ {sic} seems to have exacerbated the problem. Houde-McLennan said in the spring, their transition house was nearly empty. But they’ve seen steady increases since the summer and were operating at 130% capacity by October.
“There are also economic factors that contribute to the higher rates of violence in the North, Houde-McLennan said. The territory’s boom-and-bust cycle can add stress to people’s lives and there is also an established link between mining camps, which are abundant in Yukon, and rates of violence against women {?This claim about the work camps keeps being made by Aboriginal activists without ANY evidence being offered…}.
“A lack of affordable and social housing as well as overcrowded conditions can lead to disputes within families. Women fleeing violence may be forced to stay with another abuser due to a lack of options, Houde-McLennan said.
“There’s a long list for subsidized housing in many Yukon communities and generally women who are leaving abusive relationships are prioritized, for example, over someone who is chronically homeless but still a survivor.
“Now it’s only people experiencing intimate partner violence. So someone who’s been raped five times because she was living on the street doesn’t qualify even though she’s ‘super’ at-risk”,
Houde-McLennan said.
“Ranta acknowledged that while accessible housing is needed and can address a lot of issues, it’s not a panacea. Men, who are typically the perpetrators of violence, need to be a part of the conversation as well, Ranta said. A dynamic that is not talked about as much is how loss of pride and status from losing the role of family “provider” contributes to violence.
“As communities are settled, you lose that role”,
Ranta said.
“What we see is actually the majority of the workforce is women.” {Why?}
“To address this, his organization runs a number of programs targeted at men, including father-son programming and teaching land and hunting skills.
{What about Alcoholics Anonymous?}
“There is also a need to address ‘systemic racism’, to get the community involved more in program design and delivery and to provide training and leadership opportunities for greater ‘self-determination’.
“We’re not going to see people wary to engage in a health system or a justice system if they’re part of that system.”
–‘High rates of physical and sexual assault in the North are ‘incredibly alarming’ but don’t tell the whole story’,
Omar Mosleh, Toronto Star, Dec. 5, 2020
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2020/12/05/high-rates-of-physical-and-sexual-assault-in-the-north-are-incredibly-alarming-but-dont-tell-the-whole-story.html
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