Dehumanizing Children

Dehumanizing Children
Columbia Collage
Peter Copple
Youth, Crime and the law – Crim 155
February 7, 2013

To help clarify the understanding of the Residential Schools and The movie the “Rabbit proof fence” and the effects of social and legal environments while the Juvenile Delinquent Act was happening, seen as to be an influencing factor within the youth justice system. You need to compare and contrast between how the aboriginals were being treated in Australia and how the Aboriginal students were being treated in Canadian Residential schools. In both environments the children were being treated like animals with no rights or freedom of speech, had their religion and culture taken away and were taken away from their normal environments
weather they wanted to go or not. As the JDA and Mr.Neville thought was the best solution for the “gutter kids.” As some people thought that was the way of “saving” these children, it was not in any witch way a good thing.

In the movie – Rabbit proof fence the 3 girls, Molly, Daisy and Gracie were taken away from their mothers on the reserve, with only seconds to say their goodbyes.
Where they were sent to the Moore River Native Settlement where they were not aloud to speech in their own language, weren’t aloud to talk much, had to dress to fit the standards of the “British Upper Class”, slept on cots and were forced to pee in a bucket in the corner of the room. They were also being imposed to learn the ways of the “white people” and adapt to the Christian religion and beliefs. The children were not enjoying how they were being treated and were planning any possible ways to get out of there and not be caught. “If only they would understand what we are trying to do for them” (A.O. Neville) Mr.Neville thought that what he was doing was the best possible solution for these kids and had the right to remove any child from their family if he thought they were not being raised the correct
way.

Canadian residential schools, just like Australian settlements was a long process that was denied and ignored.
The residential schools held 15,000 native kids that were taken away from their families and were sent to church-run schools under a deliberate policy of “Civilizing” first nations. (CBC news). By taking away everything a child has grown up to believe, does not save them it ruins them, in a way that might never be fixed. Many of the children were physically, mentally and sexually abused and some even committed suicide. (CBC news) The children were denied rights to acknowledge their heritage, culture and were not aloud to speak their own language. The children were taught ways of the “upper class white people” and they were being taught minimum skills, not like normal public schools they would be taught what they would need for after they were sent away, for instants girls would be taught how to do manual labor in agriculture such as to do laundry, sew, cook and clean. The boys were taught carpentry, tinsmithing, and farming.(Wayne Christian) which pretty much meant taught to be slaves. Was that a right way of treating children? Where they were scared of what could happen next, or even being acknowledged for how they were feeling about what was going on?
No. The aboriginals in Australia were not treated like normal people, they were basically being dehumanized, treated like animals with no rights or freedom of speech and would not be able to experience a normal life in any way. They had everything being taken away from them, and were not aloud to own anything. The children were abducted for being “neglected” and not being brought up the way they should be -according to the white people. The children would eventually be told that they were orphans and the mothers would be forced to sign without reading what they were signing, to give permission to the authorities to take their children and agree to never seeing them again because the government felt like this was the best thing for these children, and didn’t care about their futures or their families. Being at the residential schools with no rights at all, lead these children to feel more neglected then they have ever felt. These children would be taken away from their homes and families because of the generation they were living in called “The stolen generation”. These children grew up, being treated horrible, and many students grew up without experiencing a nurturing family life and without having any knowledge or skills to raise their own families. Although most of them couldn’t experience having their own families because after getting out of the residential schools they would be sent to work as slaves until they were completely forgotten from society. Survivors recall being beaten and strapped; some students were shackled to their beds; some had needles shoved in their tongues for speaking their native languages.” (Wayne Christan)

In both the Australian Aboriginal Settlements and Canadian residential schools the “gutter” children were being treated wrong. Mr.Nevelle was much the same as the JDA meaning they both were classified as the government, and had the last say in what the final decision would be, because they believed what was going on was the best way to fix these troubled kids. They didn’t care how the children were having not only their families taken away from them, but their culture, beliefs, rights and were being dehumanized to fit the standards of the upper class white people. As you can see, this way of raising these children was wrong, they would not only being punished if they weren’t up to the standards of the white class but would also lose everything they believed was the right way of life.

REFERANCE http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0252444/quotes http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2013/01/30/pol-cp-truth-reconciliation-commission-documents.html http://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/home/government-policy/the-residential-school-system.html http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_was_the_effect_on_the_Australian_Aborigines_when_the_white_settlers_came