How one survivor of Canada's residential schools reclaimed her identity - Al Jazeera

LONG FORM STORY: 

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/longform/2024/11/3/how-one-survivor-of-canadas-residential-schools-reclaimed-her-identity 

Martha is a survivor of Canada’s Indigenous residential school system and the Sixties Scoop. From the 1870s to the 1990s, Canada operated a system of church and state-run residential schools that forcibly separated hundreds of thousands of Indigenous children from their families, communities and cultures with the intention of erasing Indigenous languages, spiritual practices and identities. Abuse was rife at these schools and thousands of children did not survive them.

The Sixties Scoop was an extension of the residential school system and ran from the late 1950s through the 80s. During this period, thousands of Indigenous children across Canada were forcibly removed from their families by child welfare services and placed into non-Indigenous foster homes or adoptive families, often far from their home communities.  Part of a broader government policy aimed at assimilating Indigenous peoples into mainstream Canadian society, authorities typically justified these removals by citing poverty, poor living conditions, or perceived neglect.

Martha was 10 years old when she was taken.