The coercive
sterilization of Indigenous women in Canada is genocide proper,” Dr. Karen
Stote, professor at Wilfrid Laurier University and author of An Act of
Genocide: Colonialism and Sterilization of Aboriginal Women, asserted in a
statement to Intercontinental Cry (IC) . Her distinction alludes to the
alternative phrasing of ‘cultural genocide’, a semantic preferred by judges,
policy makers and other Canadian officials when referencing the plight of
Canada’s First Nations.
Stote elaborated that,
“…imposing measures to prevent births within a group, when done to undermine
the ability of a group to continue to exist, is an act of genocide”. The crime
is fully realized “…when [this] coercive sterilization is understood within the
larger context of colonialism, as one of many policies/practices imposed on
Indigenous peoples that allows the increasing encroachment of Indigenous lands
and the reduction of the number of those to whom the federal government has
obligations”.
Dr. Kim Anderson,
Cree/Métis writer and fellow Wilfrid Laurier professor who specializes in
community engaged research in Indigenous communities, supported Dr. Stote’s
statement in a phone conversation with IC. “Genocide is the term for [these]
systematic strategies. The ultimate end of sterilization is that people are
unable to have children and that’s genocide.”
Anderson spoke of the
many stories emerging from inside her own personal network of First Nations
women today, stories detailing events that took place in Canada as recently as
the 1960’s and 1970’s. She went on to contextualize them in reference to a larger,
more compounded strategy of genocide on Canada’s First Nations’ families.
Rather systematic in approach, attacks against Indigenous family structure and
even more specifically, “Indigenous mothering”, have been methodically
inflicted going back to first contact. Anderson painted a picture of deep
sociocultural wounds from strategic attacks that pierced the most sacred parts of Indigenous life; she
described how this frightening history of oppression and abuse made the
sterilization era all the more traumatic, in the context of Canada’s greater
colonial grand strategy.
A universal legal
definition of genocide was outlined in Articles II and III of the Convention on
the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide in 1948. According to Article II, the
two main elements of genocide are the ‘mental’ and the ‘physical’. The mental
element considers the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national,
ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.”
The physical element is
itemized into five parts: killing members of the aforementioned group, causing
serious bodily or mental harm to group members of the aforementioned group;
causing serious bodily or mental harm to group members; “deliberately
inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its
physical destruction in whole or in part”; “imposing measures intended to
prevent births within the group”; and, “forcibly transferring children of the
group to another group.”
These criteria are what
Stote refers to when she describes Canada’s handling of its First Nations
residents as “genocide proper.” Perhaps a more palatable term to some, cultural
genocide has made its way into the larger conversation; its presence there
nuanced in a manner that is alternately valuable and distracting.
The terminology of
‘cultural genocide’ is currently used by Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation
Commission as a description of Canada’s policies of forced removal and
residential schools. In relation to this – and to how much work really does
still need to be done to address Canada’s colonial legacy – Anderson was quick
to point out a disturbing statistic: there are more First Nations children in
the Canadian welfare system now, than were removed to residential schools in
the previous era.
Though care must be
taken to prevent a battle of semantics from overshadowing these very real and
very current issues, there are times when these nuances do matter; even more if they play host to evasion
strategies of the hegemonic variety. One of the themes Stote explores in her
book is Canada’s role and responsibility – in collusion with other hegemonic,
western interests operating at the “UN level” – for the deletion of the article
on ‘cultural genocide’ from the 1948 Genocide Convention.
To be clear, Canada
actually went as far as threatening to opt out of the entire Genocide
Convention if it was included, and was a direct force in the collective
opposition that culminated in its removal. Interestingly enough, the measure
was supported by the entire Soviet Bloc, while its critics – other than Canada
– included the U.S. and most of Western Europe. There were two notable
environmental factors contextualizing this sequence of events.
First of all, these
circumstances were unfolding in the wake of Hitler’s genocide in Germany; and
protections geared specifically at ‘culture’ were presented as superficial in
comparison. Secondly, it was all taking place on the cusp of the McCarthy era.
It is conceivable that western interests were preemptively protecting other
systematic strategies that were being developed – and executed – to target
communist, or otherwise political groups, from appearing on the radar of
Convention upholders. In any event, the terminology was omitted and with it,
the legitimacy of ‘cultural genocide’ under international law. The terminology
was revived in 2007 as part of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights
of Indigenous Peoples, but was again ultimately excluded in favor of the more succinct
expression of, ‘genocide’.
The practices of
coerced and forced sterilizations of Indigenous women – and men – must also be
understood in the context of both what appears to be this large scale appeal
for genocidal impunity, and as well within the violations of basic consent. The
American Bar Association outlines a complex set of standards regarding a ward
of the system’s ability to give consent in terms of biomedical practices and
research. Indigenous peoples in some
contexts – trapped in the cyclical patterns of settler violence and imperialistic
intrusion upon their lives and culture – especially historically, were
definitively unable to give legal consent, even when consent was sought – be it
under the most pretentious of terms considering Indigenous peoples were
veritable prisoners of war at this point in Canada’s history. Accordingly, an
examination of historical documents by Stote revealed “problems: such as a lack
of interpreters, ... a lack of informed consent, [or] consent forms not being
translated into the languages spoken by Indigenous peoples.”
The extent to which
Canada was coloring outside the ethical lines with their practices of forced
sterilization is further realized in terms of another case in point. Stote
related that,
The first high dose
birth control pill was being prescribed in Indigenous communities, 1964-1965 at
least, before contraceptives were
legalized for these purposes – in 1969 – with the intent to reduce the birth
rate, and to "reduce the size of the homes the federal government would
need to provide.
Considering the
Catholic Church’s position on birth control, it might be assumed that their own
activity in relation to Canada’s First Nations during this period would steer
far and wide from the government’s unholy interventionism. It is therefore
especially confusing that they actually worked in collusion with the Canadian
government in terms of these methodical
strategies to wipe Canada’s First Nations off the face of the planet.
This unholy alliance is perhaps most evident in Canada’s long-running policy of
forcibly removing Indigenous children from their homes and families, and
imprisoning them in residential Christian schools funded by the state. As
detailed above, this practice stands on its own as a violation of the Geneva
Convention, even after the phrasing ‘cultural genocide’ had been struck from
the official document.
After a six year
investigation, The Truth and Reconciliation Commission concluded that:
The Canadian government
pursued this policy of cultural genocide because it wished to divest itself of
its legal and financial obligations to Aboriginal people and gain control over
their lands and resources. If every Aboriginal person had been ‘absorbed into
the body politic’, there would be no reserves, no treaties and no Aboriginal
rights.
During a recent trip to
Bolivia, Pope Francis issued an apology for the “sins” the Catholic Church
committed against the Indigenous of Latin America. Members of Canada’s First
Nations would undoubtedly be well served by a similar statement from the (if ambivalently)
human rights-oriented Pope. Canadian First Nations organizers were disappointed
that former Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, did not issue a more
direct appeal for an apology for the Church’s role in the residential schools
when he met with the Pope recently. Assembly of First Nations Chief Perry
Bellegarde strongly lamented that move (or lack of one) citing at the time:
Today would have been a
powerful and appropriate day to issue that invitation and it would help
survivors in their healing journey.
Enter in Justin
Trudeau, Canada’s newly elected Prime Minister and Leader of the Liberal Party,
who quickly responded to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s release of
its final report detailing Canada’s history of residential schools on December
15, 2015. The report documents a horrific legacy of physical and sexual abuse
that culminated in an official death toll of 3,200 -- though Commission
chairman, Justice Murray Sinclair, estimates the actual number to be much
higher. Trudeau’s comments -- themselves
a potential harbinger of a long awaited policy pivot -- came after he met with
leaders from 5 First Nations communities in Ottawa on December 16th.
To bring the discussion
back to coerced and forced sterilization, it is important to note that these
atrocities were certainly not limited to Canada. These ethical anomalies are
well documented to have occurred in many other nation states as well, including
the United States of America.
In 2000, the American
Indian Quarterly journal published an article entitled, ‘The Indian Health
Service and the Sterilization of Native American Women.’ Researchers concluded
their assessment with encouraging news regarding more recent trends concerning
Native autonomy in health care practices, but laced any implied optimism with a
warning:
While the
sterilizations that occurred in the 1960’s and 1970’s harmed Native Americans,
Indian participation in their own health care since 1976 has strengthened their
tribal communities. Sterilization abuse has not been reported recently on the
scale that occurred during the 1970’s, but the possibility still exists for it
to occur.
To punctuate that
ultimately prophetic statement is a much more recent case from Peru, in which
around 350,000 women – the majority of whom were Indigenous Quechua, Aymara,
Shipiba, or Ashaninkas – were coercively sterilized by a government health
program under the administration of former President Alberto Fujimori.
(Fujimori was later sentenced to 25 years in prison for grave human rights violations
not directly related to sterilizations.)
The issue of consent
loomed large in Peru as well. Sometimes the procedures were done completely in
secret after childbirth, and sometimes the only form of consent was a waiver
signed by a relative (disturbing, from a few angles, given the language
barriers.) There were a number of factors that disabled proper consent
protocol, and likewise a number of negative impacts women experienced in the
aftermath.
Alejandra Ballón, who
has written a book about the procedures in Peru under Fujimoto, noted that,
“The women lost their strength and could no longer work as farmers, but also
many were abandoned by their male partners, and forced to immigrate to the
cities.” In November of 2015, a mobilization of about 80 Peruvian women –
victims of these practices of forced sterilizations between 1996 and 2000 –
took to the streets demanding justice.
It's impossible to know
if there are similar accounts of impact on the victims of forced sterilizations
in Canada, because the necessary research has not been carried out. According
to Anderson, this is what makes Stote’s ongoing work so important. She also
points to the need to collect the stories of Canada’s First Nation eugenics-era
survivors, while they are still alive. She
may even take on the latter task herself, having had a dream about it.
Anderson further
contextualized Canada’s history of sterilizing its First Nations women as being
spawned from this broader eugenics movement that was born out of the writings
of Francis Galton, cousin of Charles Darwin,
who coined the term 'eugenics' in 1883 . It was a movement, she points
out, that Indigenous peoples were constantly targeted by.
Seven years before Nazi
Germany passed the Nuremburg Race Laws that outlawed German Jews from having
sexual or marital relations with anyone of German or mixed ancestry, Alberta
passed ‘The Sexual Sterilization Act’ in 1928. The legislation outlined the
conditions and procedures for sterilizing individuals who were deemed to have
‘undesirable traits.’ Five years later, in 1933, British Columbia passed a law
of its own, ‘An Act Respecting Sexual
Sterilization’. Like its eastern counterpart, British Columbia’s legislation
outlined the who, the where, and the how in regards to sterilization of those
who were considered wards of the state
and possessed some sort of ‘undesirable trait’.
One has to wonder, as
professor and Lakota-American, Dr. Lehman Brightman did during his historic
speech at the end of ‘The Long Walk’ in 1978 (which followed the famous
occupation of Alcatraz in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s) if this ‘trait’ was
in fact resource-rich land and unconquered territory. Brightman proclaimed,
regarding Natives in the United States at that time:
We won’t have any need
for reservations if we don’t stop the sterilization of our youth, and of our
women, and of our men.
Even amidst the height
of these draconian practices, most of the time the need for actual consent was
at least legally recognized. In other words, it is possible that B.C. was
breaking its own laws in regards to methods used to forcibly sterilize Canadian
First Nations women.
Arizona State
professor, Dr. Myla Vicenti Carpio, published an article in 2004 called, ‘The
Lost Generation: American Indian Women and Sterilization Abuse’, in which she
charges that:
The United States
filters monies through agencies such as the U.S. Agency for International
Development [USAID], the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Ford Foundation for
population control programs. These agencies were responsible for the
sterilization of men and women in regions such as Puerto Rico, Brazil,
Guatemala, Africa, and Panama.
Exact figures are
unattainable in terms of just how many Native Americans were sterilized in the
U.S. during the 1970’s. Brightman, who devoted much of his life’s work to the
issue, put his educated guess at about 40% of all Native American women alive
at that time, and 10% of Native men. Brightman figured that the total number of
Native women sterilized during that decade was between 60,000 and 70,000, and
has labeled it “criminal negligence and criminal genocide.” Citing the language
issues, among other issues related to consent, Brightman asserted: “They’ve
sterilized all of our women by trickery, by fraud and by crook. They’ve asked
them to sign consent forms that they couldn’t read, in English; they’ve
sterilized them without telling them about it; and they’ve sterilized them by
lying to them and telling them the operation was reversible.”
Documented survivor
counts are accumulating among Canada’s First Nations community as well.
According to Stote: “We know (according to other researchers, i.e., Christian,
1974 and Grekul, 2004) Indigenous peoples were targeted under Alberta's eugenic
legislation (1928-1972), making up 6-8% of those sterilized overall, despite
only being about 3% of the population; although in later years (1969-1972), they
made up over 25% of those sterilized.”
Stote’s own research –
reviewing the first of three federal files she searched in all – uncovered
sterilizations performed on Indigenous women at 14 different federally operated
Indian Hospitals across Canada. Another set documented sterilizations on First
Nations women from 32 different northern settlements; and, a third set detailed
the experiences of women from the Baffin, Keewatin, Mackenzie, and Inuvik
zones.
Unfortunately for
Canada’s First Nations, neither sterilizations nor history are easily reversed;
and as such, neither are the sustained impacts of the genocide of eugenics. One
of the surest ways to make sure these tragedies of recent history are not
repeated in the present or future, is to heed the call to aggregate and
document the collective and individual stories and memories of Canada’s First
Nations women who are still living with the effects.
In terms of relevance
in modernity for Canada’s First Nations, Stote explained to IC that:
I think the discourse
of blaming individuals for social problems, for the poverty conditions in which
they live, and for having children they “can’t afford” is still very much with
us. It is more cost effective to blame individuals, and to view them (or their
reproduction) as the cause of their situation rather than examine the larger
political, economic and social system in place that creates poverty, social
problems, etc. And for Indigenous women in Canada, but many other places as
well, it is conditions of colonialism and the failure of the federal government
(settler population in general) to uphold obligations to Indigenous peoples
that is creating the marginalized status and poverty conditions in which
Indigenous peoples are forced to live. These conditions of colonialism are
ongoing.
These very issues have
come to a head recently as yet another First Nations woman has come forward
with an account of a recent sterilization that occurred outside of the
boundaries of proper consent. Melika Popp, a Saskatoon woman who was sterilized
after the delivery of her first child, was assured the process was reversible
and shared, “I felt very targeted. It was under duress. I was definitely
hormonal at that time.
For more recent
survivors like Popp, the struggle to come to terms with ongoing impacts has
just begun. Others have been carrying these burdens for decades without a
platform on which to speak out. In terms of what it will take to jumpstart the
healing process for all, thus allowing Canada’s victims, their families, and their
communities to move forward, Anderson had some words:
Story-telling and
testimonial can be a healing process for people, to [realize] that their voice
and their story is heard. In general, North Americans are really uninformed
about Indigenous history on the continent and the brutality that was involved,
and maybe are resistant to learning about that because it triggers all sorts of
other feelings, like white guilt, but the only way to go forward is to work
with the truth. It is also important to talk about it within the framework of
assessing the family breakdown. Family is so important to Indigenous
cultures…the attack therefore has been so devastating…recognizing and naming
this is a significant form of healing.
According to recent
reports, a surprising leader in the race to make amends on issues of forced and
coerced sterilizations is the southeastern state of North Carolina. North
Carolina announced their intentions to be the first state to financially
compensate victims of its particularly aggressive sterilization programs, in
early 2012. Estimates cite that North Carolina alone sterilized 7,600 people
between 1929 and 1974. Out of 768 claims made, 220 living victims were
designated to receive checks of $20,000 each. Under the compensation policy, the
sterilizations had to have taken place under the state’s Eugenics Board;
unfortunately, various judges and social service workers were apparently
‘greenlighting’ them off the books as well.
Stote also weighed in
with some insight about how Canadians can move forward as a whole on the
trajectory towards justice and healing.
On an individual basis,
I think those on whom these injustices were perpetrated should be asked about
what needs to be done. Gathering the details of what happened, when, on whom, and
under what conditions, would be made much easier if there was an honest and
forthcoming attempt to, at the very least, acknowledge [that] this type of
thing happened to Indigenous peoples in Canada. More broadly, I have
consistently heard and seen Indigenous peoples struggling for the right to
self-determination as peoples, to have their ways of life respected, their
bodies respected, and to have settlers uphold their end of the original
responsibilities and relationships that were laid out between them and
Indigenous peoples. So, I see that as a great place to start. I think this will
require Canadians to really take the initiative in learning our history, and to
challenge those we have been allowing to make decisions on our behalf. This
will ultimately need to include a restructuring of our social, political and
economic life in Canada.
Keri Cheechoo, a Cree
woman from the community of Long Lake #58 First Nation, and a PhD. Candidate at
the Faculty of Education at the University of Ottawa, offered some final
thoughts in a statement to IC:
As peculiar as it
sounds, I awoke at about three in the morning with two words swirling in my
mind: forced sterilizations. I scribbled them down on the back of a receipt and
went back to sleep. The next day I began reading and engaging in dialogue with
those both close to me, and in the Academy, and I began to realize that the
scope of forced or coerced sterilizations in Indigenous women is both
appallingly enormous and disturbingly concealed.
It is my opinion that
forced or coerced sterilization is an act of violence on Indigenous women. The
colonial agenda of genocide that was endorsed in the form of forced or coerced
sterilization of Indigenous women contributed directly to the colonization of
the land. Indigenous women are conduits, we are connected to the land in an
esoteric way, and a permanent loss of reproduction and reproduction rights
directly impacts our capacity to inhabit or to disrupt attempts at land theft.
I think it is important
that the Canadian federal government endorse the 41st Call to Action in the
Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada Report, which indicates: “We call
upon the federal government, in consultation with Aboriginal organizations, to
appoint a public inquiry into the causes of, and remedies for, the
disproportionate victimization of Aboriginal women and girls. The inquiry’s
mandate would include: i. Investigation into missing and murdered Aboriginal
women and girls; [and] ii. Links to the intergenerational legacy of residential
schools.” (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action,
2015, p. 4)
It is my growing belief
that it is vital that this piece of hidden Canadian history be exposed, and
that mainstream Canada become educated on the historical trauma of forced or
coerced sterilizations on Indigenous women.
by Courtney Parker December
17, 2015
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