#60s Scoop adoptees rally on Parliament Hill in Ottawa

More than 20,000 Indigenous children removed from their families from 1960s to 1980s

By Waubgeshig Rice, CBC News | Posted: Apr 29, 2016 

60s Scoop adoptees gathered for a rally on Parliament Hill on Friday. (Waubgeshig Rice/CBC)

Indigenous people who were adopted during the Sixties Scoop rallied on Parliament Hill Friday in solidarity with other adoptees across Canada, and to put pressure on the federal government to reform the Indigenous child welfare system.
"We are here to celebrate our survival of the child welfare (system), and to raise those issues," said organizer Duane Morrisseau-Beck. "The message to those survivors is that you're not alone, and that we're really working hard to find some answers."

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From the 1960s to the 1980s, an estimated 20,000 Indigenous children were removed from their families and placed with non-Indigenous families — often far from their home communities — during what's known as the Sixties Scoop.

Duane Morrisseau-Beck reconnected with his birth mother, Geraldine Beck, in 1997. (Waubgeshig Rice/CBC)

Morrisseau-Beck was apprehended by child welfare authorities in Manitoba at birth in 1968. In 1977 he reconnected with his birth mother, Geraldine Beck, who joined him at the Ottawa rally.
"It's almost like I was away for a long time, and then I returned home," he said. "It was a seamless process, it just took time to get to know who I was and who my community is, and just sort of go through that validation. And some days I continue to do that."
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External Links

• Indigenous Survivors of Child Welfare