Violence

In Our World ...Against aboriginal peoples around the world

• Introduction   • Digital Stories   • Print Information   • Graphic/Comic   Statistics

Introduction

The histories of many nations include the attempted genocide and systemic marginalization of Aboriginal peoples. The forced removal from and theft of land in many countries, the biological warfare of intentionally disseminated disease in Canada, the head hunting in Australia and New Zealand, the brutal denial of water in the Americas, the systematic rape of Aboriginal women through the ages… the list of atrocities could go on and on. Currently, communities cope with a dearth of healthcare, housing, education, political power, countered by an abundance of substance abuse, poverty, disease, and self/other harm. The suicide rate of Inuit youth in Canada is eleven times higher the national average (Vancouver Sun, 2007).

State-sanctioned violence against Aboriginal peoples has taken the form of political legislation—government actions that result in discrimination and violence. Legislation can have the power to decimate traditional social structures, introducing interpersonal, often gender-based violence. The residential schools imposed on Canada’s aboriginal communities are a plain illustration of this. Marlene Starr describes their impact:

In traditional Aboriginal societies, women had a role equal to that of men; this role was destroyed by colonialism and especially the Indian Act. In residential schools we were carefully tutored, through both direct teaching and role modeling, to accept inequality of the sexes as just and right. The ‘might makes right’ philosophy of the residential schools has done immeasurable harm to our communities, and it will take years of resocialization for us to regain our equilibrium. Progress is being made in the political realm, which is almost exclusively the right of male Aboriginals. However, more than control of political structures is needed in order to restore a culture. (Starr, 2004:xi)

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Digital Stories

Intergenerational Effects on Professional First Nations Women Whose Mothers are Residential School Survivors
The effects of violence resonate in complex ways long after the original violence has been experienced. Echoes of trauma cross individual and generational barriers, a fact explored in much work dealing with Canada’s shameful legacy of residential schools.

The women who created these stories join those taking up the difficult task of processing painful inter-generational memories. They look at how the realities of residential schools impact relations among family members – in this case, with a focus on mothers.

Digital stories combine personal narrative with music, still images, and video to share knowledge, and to open spaces for healing, resistance and the re-creation of meaning; self-determination is strengthened through self-representation. This Prairie Women's Health Centre of Excellence (PWHCE) project was funded through a financial contribution from Health Canada. Click here to see their 5 digital stories.

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Print Information

Ending Violence Against Aboriginal Women
Raise awareness and get a dialogue on the issue of violence against Aboriginal women and family violence

Stolen Sisters: A Human Rights Response to Discrimination and Violence Against Indigenous Women in Canada

A report from Amnesty International on unacceptable conditions for Aboriginal women..

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Graphic/Comic

Experiences of children placed in the care of people other than their birth families are disproportionately found among families who are poor, families of colour, and Aboriginal families. The Healthy Aboriginal network presents Lighting up the Darkness: our youth in care comic. In this story, Jenny returns to her community after living in the city with her aunt and uncle. While visiting family, she has a series of painful flashbacks to when she was a little girl. Jenny’s story is one girl’s struggle. But many youth will be able to relate to events in her young life.

The Healthy Aboriginal network offers a series of other graphic books that speak to the health of Aboriginal people on a wide range of issues. Please visit them to preview and order these beautiful, practical and insightful comics. 

Statistics

Social Challenges: The Well-Being of Aboriginal People is a statistical look at the systemic inequities that lead to the over-representation of Aboriginal peoples in the Canadian justice system.

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