Indigenous

Heartbreaking Study out of Manitoba: Moms in Foster Care More Likely to Lose Their Infants

Kate Fort1 Comment

Study here

Adolescent mothers in the care of CPS are much more likely to have their child taken into CPS care. By separating a quarter of young mothers from their infant within the first week of life, and almost half before the child turns 2, the cycle continues. For adolescents in CPS care who give birth, more and better services are required to support these mothers and to keep mothers and children together wherever possible.

Coverage here

A quick review of the study doesn’t reveal a direct link to Indigenous girls, but

She pointed to the province of Manitoba, where 10,000 of the 11,000 children in care are indigenous.

and

The number of children in care in Manitoba is among the highest per-capita compared with other provinces. It has nearly doubled in the last decade to 11,000. Nearly 90 per cent are Indigenous.

In neighbouring Saskatchewan, with roughly the same population, the number is roughly 4,000, Fielding said.

First Five Recommendations of Canada’s TRC Report Involve Child Welfare

Kate Fort

CBC story here.

Recommendations/Calls to Action here.

Child welfare
1. We call upon the federal, provincial, territorial, and Aboriginal governments to commit to reducing the number of Aboriginal children in care by:

i. Monitoring and assessing neglect investigations.

ii. Providing adequate resources to enable Aboriginal communities and child-welfare organizations to keep Aboriginal families together where it is safe to do so, and to keep children in culturally appropriate environments, regardless of where they reside.

iii. Ensuring that social workers and others who conduct child-welfare investigations are properly educated and trained about the history and impacts of residential schools.

iv. Ensuring that social workers and others who conduct child-welfare investigations are properly educated and trained about the potential for Aboriginal communities and families to provide more appropriate solutions to family healing.

v. Requiring that all child-welfare decision makers consider the impact of the residential school experience on children and their caregivers.

2. We call upon the federal government, in collaboration with the provinces and territories, to prepare and publish annual reports on the number of Aboriginal children (First Nations, Inuit, and Métis) who are in care, compared with non-Aboriginal children, as well as the reasons for apprehension, the total spending on preventive and care services by child-welfare agencies, and the effectiveness of various interventions.

3. We call upon all levels of government to fully implement Jordan’s Principle.

4. We call upon the federal government to enact Aboriginal child-welfare legislation that establishes national standards for Aboriginal child apprehension and custody cases and includes principles that:

i. Affirm the right of Aboriginal governments to establish and maintain their own child-welfare agencies.

ii. Require all child-welfare agencies and courts to take the residential school legacy into account in their decision making.

iii. Establish, as an important priority, a requirement that placements of Aboriginal children into temporary and permanent care be culturally appropriate.

5. We call upon the federal, provincial, territorial, and Aboriginal governments to develop culturally appropriate parenting programs for Aboriginal families.

Sanders on Genomic Research in Indian Country

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Marren Sanders has posted “Genomic Research in Indian Country: The New Road to Termination?” on SSRN.

The abstract:

Genomic science has generated controversy in the social, legal, and ethical arenas for decades, and indigenous populations continue to be a subject of great interest in this area. This article looks at the recent concept of population genomics, a biotechnology used to help scientists understand how genetic variation relates to human health and evolutionary history. Parts II and III examine the debate among scientists as to the migration of the “first Americans” into North America, a debate that is quickly being influenced by the DNA markers found in the human genome. Part IV surveys the history of scientific research involving indigenous peoples – a history predominantly colored by ignorance and bias – as science was presented as conclusive proof of their savage nature and inferiority as a race. Scientists today proffer evidence that the ancestors of Native Americans were, in reality, colonists who immigrated from Africa, Europe, and/or Asia, and Part V analyzes a number of indicators that point to the possibility of genomic research providing justification for another termination of the special status and rights of Native Americans. Part VI looks at a number of tools that tribes may wish to consider using to help protect the genetic information of their members as they are faced with the seemingly endless need of researchers for Native American DNA. The article concludes that while suppositions of geneticists are in actuality just theories of historic migration, these theories have gained acceptance as fact in mainstream society. Given current indicators, Congress and/or the courts may very well use genomic science to justify another termination of the federal/tribal trust relationship.

Danielle Conway on Promoting Indigenous Innovation Through the Licensing of Article 31 Indigenous Assets and Resources

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Danielle M. Conway has posted her paper, “Promoting Indigenous Innovation, Enterprise, and Entrepreneurship Through the Licensing of Article 31 Indigenous Assets and Resources.” She published the paper in the SMU Law Review.

Here is the abstract:

The notion that indigenous entrepreneurship is inherently paradoxical to participation in the western marketplace must be challenged, even though there is a fine balance indigenous entrepreneurs maintain with their own world and the western world. This balance considers that indigenous entrepreneurs exist within transgenerational communities with complex cross-cultural linkages with the west. Far from fully segregating from western society and the states in which they reside, indigenous entrepreneurs seek to promote indigeneity through indigenous and non-indigenous commerce. As Hindle and Lansdowne explain, “[t]here need be no paradox, no contradiction, no values sacrifice, no false dichotomy between heritage and innovation.” Reference to the goals and objectives of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples bear this out. For example, article 19 of the Declaration relates to Indigenous peoples’ participation with respect to issues that affect them, their lands, their resources, and their rights. The Declaration also calls for good-faith efforts by states to consult and cooperate with Indigenous peoples about economic and social development that directly or indirectly impacts their rights. Relevant to this paper, article 31 of the Declaration deals with Indigenous peoples’ right to exercise authority and control over their cultural heritage, traditional knowledge, and traditional cultural expressions in addition to any intellectual property rights in these assets and resources. Accordingly, this Article promotes the use of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as a basis for asserting indigenous control over article 31 assets and resources to spur indigenous enterprise and innovation. After asserting control, Indigenous peoples can then operationalize the use of their article 31 assets and resources to counteract the “history of dispossession, assimilation, child removal and other previous colonial policies [that have] created a legacy” of economic disadvantage, political and structural disadvantage, geographic and cultural disadvantage, and collective and individual disadvantage. This article focuses on licensing as a mechanism to both implement the goals and objectives of the Declaration and to reassert indigenous authority and control over indigenous assets and resources.

Commentary: Tribes Lead Efforts to Implement UN Declaration

Kirsten Matoy Carlson
by Robert T. Coulter*

Photo for Robert T. Coulter
Robert T. Coulter is Executive Director of the Indian Law Resource Center. He is a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation and has more than 30 years of experience in the field of Indian law.

It has been just a year since President Obama announced the Administration’s support for the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and promised action to implement at least some of those rights.  Across the country, tribal governments are seizing the Declaration and using it creatively to protect their lands and resources, and especially their rights to cultural and sacred sites.

For example, the Navajo Nation has used the Declaration in its efforts to protect the San Francisco Peaks, and the Seneca Nation has pointed out Article 37 (“Indigenous peoples have the right to the recognition, observance and enforcement of treaties”) in its efforts to resolve a 60-year occupation of Seneca territory by the New York State Thruway that violates the 1794 Treaty of Canandaigua. Continue reading →