On August 17th, 2014, the body of a fifteen-year-old female was found wrapped in a duvet weighed down by rocks in the Red River. The body was later identified as Miss Tina Fontaine, who is from Sagkeeng First Nation. This disturbing story was covered by CBC in an article titled “Tina Fontaine, 15, found in a bag in Red River” and underneath the title is a photo of Alexander Dock on Winnipeg’s Red River. Spread on the dock is small memorial towards the deceased aboriginal. The article then continues to explain that under the circumstances her body was found in, the police are treating the case as a homicide. In the article, Miss Fontaine is described as “petite little thing” who weighs 100 pounds and that she had only been in the Winnipeg …show more content…
In this context structural violence is defined as the violence that results from the way that political and economic forces structure risk for various forms of suffering within a population (Schultz YEAR, 372). Fontaine was forcibly removed from her family and community. Furthermore, “Aboriginal foster parents are absolutely essential to prevent a continuation of practices from the colonial past that have served to separate Aboriginal children from their families and communities.” (Browns et al. 2013, 364) and this thus adds another limiting factor to her agency and endured structural violence. In the words of Browns, foster care is reproducing residential schools in the sense aboriginal children are being taken and assimilated into western society. CBC article briefly explains “…she was rebelling in that care she was in. She was running away and had a history of that, but obviously, she was in danger doing that” (CBC News 2014), and with this being the only explanation of Tina’s situation, one would think that it is wholly her decision to run away. Without Tina’s history in the media article, one’s idea of Tina, and aboriginals, in general, becomes false, and a negative stereotype that aboriginals are runaways, problem creators and criminals are maintained. This generates a “us and them” dichotomy where society is reluctant to resolve social injustices, and this is why it is critical for media outlets to accurately portray the given
Renee Heikamp, 19, and case worker from the Catholic Children’s Aid Society (CCAS), Angie Martin, were charged with criminal negligence resulting in the 1997 death of newborn baby, Jordan Heikamp. The charges were dropped shortly after Jordan’s death, due to a lack of evidence from the investigation of a 63-day inquest. (CBC, 2001). Renee Heikamp and her baby were residing at the Anduhyaun shelter that services Aboriginal women fleeing abuse during the time of his death. Jordan Heikamp had starved to death, weighing only 4 pounds, 4 ounces less than what he weighed at his pre-mature birth, in May 1997; a photograph shown to witnesses at the inquest revealed the corpse of the baby who was little more than a skeleton.
Question 1: a) Donna Gamble is an Aboriginal woman who lives in her hometown of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. She is a former ward of the state and has spent a significant part of her youth inside juvenile correction centres. At a young age she started using drugs and alcohol as a form of escape and resorted to prostitution as a means of sustaining her habits. Donna has six children, all with the exception of the youngest two who were placed in the custody of child services. Donna has quit working as a prostitute and is currently on the road to recovery from years of addiction and abuse.
Read the posted case study about Benita Vasquez and discuss the following questions: 1. What are the clinical causes of death in the story? a. Senora Vasquez died because of uncontrolled diabetes, Infected wound and diffusing kidneys. With not well-controlled diabetes and acquiring an infected burn wound makes it harder for the patient to get treatment. Thus with the condition of the patient and her current social status, she is unable to afford the treatment and medications needed to alleviate her suffering.
Both Birthright and Monkey Beach show the injustices the Aboriginal community faced and still faces today. These injustices cause emotional, physical, and psychological scaring which eventually leads victims to become abusers and victimize others in the future. This victim-to-abuser cycle is noted in a study which showed that “there is positive correlation between a victim of sexual abuse and becoming a perpetrator.” (Glasser, 9) This causal effect is seen through Josh, who had been sexually abused in residential school. Josh's traumatic childhood resulted in the abused becoming the abuser when he raped his niece, Adelaine. An uncle is seen as someone who can be trusted, a member of the family; however, Josh ended up harming Adelaine. This mirrors the duality of nature in the no...
Gail Miller was a 22-year-old nursing assistant living in Saskatoon. She was found in an alley way between 6:45 and 7:30am on January 31st 1969. She had been raped, stabbed twelve times and left for dead. The rape was found to have occurred after she died. The police had little evidence; few clues had been left behind. There had been other attacks in the same area. Authorities tried to suppress the information that linked the Miller rape and murder to the two other assaults.
Residential schools undoubtedly created detrimental inter-generational consequences. The dark legacy of residential schools has had enduring impact, reaching into each new generation, and has led to countless problems within Aboriginal families including: chemical dependence, a cycle of abuse in families, dysfunctional families, crime and incarceration, depression, grief, suicide, and cultural identity issues (McFarlan, 2000, p. 13). Therefore, the inter-generational consequence...
Andrea Yates long history of mental illness did impact what she did to her children as well as an outside influence of Michael and Rachel Woroniecki. In 1993 Rusty and Andrea married and a year later they had their first child a son named Noah. They planned on having many children whatever God intended for them. Their five children were all named after figures from the Bible. After Andrea’s first child Noah was born she began to have violent visions and felt that Satan was speaking to her. Andrea kept all her feelings to herself not realizing how much mental illness was in her family because she and Rusty had Bible inspired notions about family and motherhood. Andrea tried to have a fourth child, but suffered a miscarriage. Not long after that she got pregnant and had her fourth child. Andrea began to suffer from serious depression after the birth of their fourth child. America has a hard time on understanding how hormonal shifts can cause violent hallucinations and thoughts. Such women are at risk of committing suicide or harming their children thinking that it is for the child’s own good.
The first reason youth leave home is according to Klodawsky, Aubry and Farrell, “pervasiveness of family conflict and violence”. Most street youth, including aboriginals, have been victims of disruption in their family homes, violence and abuse. A considerable amount of them reported having to live in group homes, foster care, jail or i...
Though the film mentioned the impact that residential schools had and still has on the aboriginal people, I felt that this issue needed to be stressed further because the legacy of the schools is still extremely prominent in aboriginal communities today. The film refers to the fact that residential schools harmed the aboriginal people because they were not able to learn their culture, which has resulted in the formation of internalized oppression within in the group. “The...
“About two-thirds of children admitted to public care have experienced abuse and neglect, and many have potentially been exposed to domestic violence, parental mental illness and substance abuse” (Dregan and Gulliford). These children are being placed into foster care so that they can get away from home abuse, not so they can move closer towards it. The foster children’s varied outcomes of what their adult lives are is because of the different experiences they grew up with in their foster homes. The one-third of those other foster children usually has a better outcome in adult life than the other two-thirds, which is a big problem considering the high percentage of children being abused in their foster homes. Although, the foster care system has most definitely allowed children to experience the positive home atmosphere that they need there is still an existed kind of abusive system in the foster care program that is unofficial but seems to be very popular. Foster care focuses on helping children in need of a temporary stable environment; however, foster care can have negative impacts to the children and the people around them concerning the foster child going through the transition, the parents of the foster child, a new sibling relationship, and problems that arrive later influencing the foster child long-term.
On July 27th, 2015 a young woman named Maylin Reynoso went missing. She was last seen leaving her job at a gas station and after this her friends and family went to social media to ask people if they had any information about where Maylin could be. Other than these posts on Instagram, Tumbler, and Facebook there was no news coverage about her disappearance. Sadly, Maylin’s body was found three day later in the Harlem River, she was only 20 years old; although she had been found dead there was still no news coverage about her (Blay, 2016). The worst part of her death was that her family did not know about her body being found until a week later. The family was only able to identify Maylin’s body because of her tattoos. During that same week
Robert William “Willie” Pickton is currently serving a life sentence for the second degree murder of six British Columbian women. Although convicted for the murders of six victims, physical and forensic evidence for thirty-three women was uncovered at Pickton’s Port Coquitlam pig farm which served as the crime scene for his murders. Numerous other missing women, mostly marginalized prostitutes with chronic drug addiction, from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside area remain unaccounted for. It is not unreasonable to assume that they too, met the same disturbing fate as the other murder victims. Pickton’s modus operandi for the serial murders was the same; he would prowl the drug and poverty ridden Downtown Eastside neighbourhood of Vancouver looking for potential victims, take the victims back to his Port Coquitlam pig farm, and then sexually abuse, torture, and murder them before mutilating and disposing their bodies. Most disturbingly, the victim’s remains were allegedly fed to the pigs on his farm, which were then slaughtered with the meat given out to associates of Pickton or to visitors of the farm (The Pickton Trial, CBC.ca/news).
Rosa Lee Cunningham is a 52-year old African American female. She is 5-foot-1-inch, 145 pounds. Rosa Lee is married however, is living separately from her husband. She has eight adult children, Bobby, Richard, Ronnie, Donna (Patty), Alvin, Eric, Donald (Ducky) and one child who name she did not disclose. She bore her eldest child at age fourteen and six different men fathered her children. At Rosa Lee’s recent hospital admission to Howard University Hospital emergency room blood test revealed she is still using heroin. Though Rosa Lee recently enrolled in a drug-treatment program it does not appear that she has any intention on ending her drug usage. When asked why she no longer uses heroin she stated she doesn’t always have the resources to support her addiction. Rosa Lee is unemployed and receiving very little in government assistance. She appears to
This essay I have decided to write about Oprah Winfrey. This is because Oprah had many serious life events. These life events must have implemented her key development stages or the other.
In an article written by Bolg.acton.org titled as Our Foster Care System Is Becoming A ‘Pipeline’ For Human, half of a million of children in the U.S are put into foster care for a short period of time or for a long time due to crisis happening in their houses. Some of those children are placed with their relatives if they are ‘lucky’ enough. However, in the same article, in an interview with Malika Saada of Rights4Girls by NPR, she stated various issues occurring in the broken foster care system. As for what is happening with the children that are put into various houses in which at times are being abused without the knowledge of the state. In other cases, circumstances are different and unfortunate as for those who are seeing as profit. As for the story of one of the survivor leader whom they work with who was trafficked from the age of 10-17-all through California, Nevada, and Washington states-seeing foster care as training ground to being trafficked. However, even though she knew that the foster parents were getting pay to take care of her, all she cared about was that the pimp told her that he loved her. The lack of love, affirmation and protection are the reasons Malika thinks children pledge to follow their commands. In other cases, the children are told that the checks given by the government is not enough, that the only thing that made them worth was the money they would bring in. Malika also states that 60 percent of the children rescued in a recent FBI sting were from foster care at a point. Child maltreatment is being reported by the FBI throughout all the 50 states as stated by the