STORY about Indigenous posted on August 4, 2010 by isaac
Keep Your Hands Off Our Kids: Rally Against the Forced Relocation of Children
A crowd of 30 gathered outside the Ministry of Child and Family Development (MCFD) office at Smithe and Hornby on August 3 to protest what they called the ongoing cultural occupation of aboriginal families via the foster care system.
"They're trying to beat the native out of us," Jennifer Sullivan put aptly. Sullivan is a survivor of the foster care system, and called attention to the myriad of issues such as cultural genocide and abuse that comes from the current system. "We need more native people to be foster parents."
The group was called together by the Downtown East Side Power of Women, and included sever First Nations speakers that talked about heartbreaking stories of going through the foster care system, or of having children taken away from them that were never heard of again.
"I don't know how they are helping families by tearing them apart," said Bill Chu of the Canadians for Reconciliation Society. "(The current foster care system) represents a continuation of the assimilationist residential school system. It needs to be changed."
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