Suicide Among Aboriginal People in Canada - Institut universitaire ...

Chapter 4of sexual abuse (Milloy, 1999; Johansen, 2000). So too do the major “comprehensive” reports commissionedby the federal government: the Bryce Report in 1909 and the Caldwell Report in 1967. More often thannot, official reports challenged the “moral aspect of affairs” ( Johansen, 2000:19) or expressed concern overthe perceived sexual abnormalities of Aboriginal children (Milloy, 1999). They also focused on the sexualbehaviour of the children; specifically, sexual intercourse between boys and girls as well as homosexualbehaviour among boys (Haig-Brown, 1988; Milloy, 1999). All of this served to hide or deflect attentionfrom the adult perpetrators of sexual violence and exploitation.The relatively recent acknowledgement of sexual abuse in residential school narratives raised questionsabout whether this reflected an unwarranted tendency to attribute distress to such abuse or even torecollect it when none actually took place. However, there is clear evidence that sexual abuse was a longstandingpart of the residential school system (Miller, 1996). In the late nineteenth century, officialrecords alluded to sexual misconduct on the part of an oblate recruiter, who was involved in the sexualexploitation of schoolboys (Miller, 1996). Abusers took many different shapes and forms, ranging frompriests and nuns to students themselves. Types of abuse also varied. At the Moose Factory Anglicanschool, “a female staff member would take her showers with the younger Cree boys, ordering them toscrub her breasts and pubic area while she moaned ... An Ojibwa student at Shingwauk school in the1950s recalled that one male supervisor was in the habit of sitting little boys on his lap and moving themabout until he became sexually aroused” (Miller, 1996:330). Older students were also implicated in sexualabuse. Some older students who were socialized primarily in the system became abusers themselves andpreyed on younger students (Haig-Brown, 1988; Piatote, 2000).The collective silence about sex and specifically sexual abuse at residential schools allowed predatorysexual behaviour to take place over an extended period of time (Million, 2000). Nuns, priests, andadministrators—people adhering to the moral narratives of the church and Canadian state—were allimplicated in maintaining that silence. Most information about sexual abuse at residential schools hascome from special inquiries and an examination of oral testimonies. These testimonies revealed thatimproper sexual conduct continued throughout the history of the system to the point where it has beenconcluded that sexual abuse at residential schools was systematic, not occasional or accidental (Miller, 1996;Milloy, 1999). The residential school system has been described as nothing short of “institutionalizedpedophilia” (Fournier and Crey, 1997:72). Sexual abuse did not stay closeted at the residential school,but often made its way back into the communities as some of the victims who returned home becameperpetrators (Feehan, 1996; Milloy, 1999)Communities Without ChildrenAt their peak, approximately one-third of all Aboriginal children between the ages of 6 and 15 attendedresidential school (Armitage, 1995). However, the impact of residential schooling extends much further.Children were away from their communities for approximately ten months out of the year. Students wereoften sent to schools located a significant distance away from their communities, making it very difficultfor families to visit. The primary mode of communication between parents and children was letterwriting.School staff read these letters to ensure that complaints were not made of the quality of careor education their children were receiving (Haig-Brown, 1988; Miller, 1996; Milloy, 1999). The optionof letter-writing was not available to many families, meaning that there was minimal communicationbetween themselves and their children during the school year. This practice had profound effects onAboriginal culture, community, and society.68