Indigenous cultures continue to be more and more at risk of disappearing. For many decades, colonial powers have actively worked to try to wipe out indigenous languages and ways of life. Unfortunately, they have been quite effective at this. Although the tide has turned and the right to honour the indigenous cultures and languages and to live with them have finally been acknowledged, in many places there are few people left who are still familiar with them. So, it becomes a struggle to survive.
Article 30 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child says that: Minority or indigenous children have the right to learn about and practise their own culture, language and religion.
Unfortunately, indigenous children are still at a disadvantage. First Nation children, Aboriginal and Torres Strait children and Maori children, in Canada, Australia and New Zealand are still over-represented when it comes to children in state care. In part, this is because of the marginalised position of their parents and the holes in the support offered to indigenous people, causing higher rates of unemployment, and of alcohol and substance abuse.
Slowly improvements are being made and greater sensitivity is starting to be shown to the needs of indigenous children. Various countries now mention in their legislation that if an indigenous child really cannot continue living with her family, first an attempt must be made to place the child within her own community. The second step, if the child really cannot be placed with anyone in her own community, is to try to find a placement for her in another indigenous community. And finally, if that turns out to be impossible too, the child can be place with a non-indigenous family, but that this should be done with the involvement of the community leaders of the child’s community, making sure that the child will still have the opportunity to learn about her own culture and identity.
This is an important step forward. However, unfortunately, in many places this policy is not actually followed. So, more work and awareness raising is still needed to make sure that more indigenous children can continue to live with their own families or if that is impossible, within their own community. As is their right.
We have come a long way from the time when indigenous people were summarily slaughtered, to the time when they were forced to become ‘civilised’ – an attempt that included the institutionalisation of their children for the simple reason of taking them away from their own culture, in order to be indoctrinated with a foreign culture -, to a time when indigenous people are left to their own devices more, but still do not receive the same kind of basic support and respect awarded to other people in the country that was taken away from them. That is real progress, but certainly not the end of the road, there is a way still to go.
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