Canada obliged to reveal records on abuse of aboriginal school kids
by alethoPress TV - July 24, 2013
A
superior court of general jurisdiction in Canada has ordered the
government to release millions of documents on its residential school
system, which will reveal secrets of abuse and torture of aboriginal
children at government-funded schools, Press TV reports.
The
Ontario Superior Court of Justice ordered the government to hand over
the documents to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).
The
Commission has said that the documents will allow the public,
researchers and educators to learn more about what happened to the
150,000 First Nations, Metis and Inuit children, who were taken from
their homes, often against their parents’ will.
“We
knew of those records, which talked about the experiments of
withholding food from children while they were in residential schools so
the government could see what the impact of poor nutrition or
malnutrition would be on people,” said Justice Murray Sinclair.
In
addition, the documents are believed to reveal evidence of widespread
sexual and mental abuse as well as torture of native children living at
more than 130 government-funded residential schools.
The residential school system was launched in the 1870s and the last one closed in 1996.
Prime
Minister Stephen Harper’s government had initially denied the request,
saying it was of no relevance and that it would be too costly.
The
documents as well as thousands of statements from former aboriginal
students are to be housed by the National Research Center at the
University of Manitoba in Winnipeg.
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