Tag Archives: cultural genocide

April 14, 2024 · 1:00 am

Kidnapped Ukrainian Children

File:Victims of War in Ukraine - Kyiv Hospital - Exhibition by Still Miracle Photography 03.jpg

Ukrainian child’s drawing of a tank from “Faces of War:  The Human Factor” (2015 London photography exhibit), Author Still Miracle Photography (CC BY-SA 4.0 International)

The war in Ukraine is disproportionately impacting Ukraine’s children.  At least 30,000 have been kidnapped and deported to Russia [1][2].  Fears are that the number is far higher.  Russia is refusing to disclose information about these children.

This mass deportation is being called cultural genocide, a deliberate effort to destroy the Ukrainian people [3].

Russia’s goal is to brainwash and weaponize these children, who are apparently assembled in camps before deportation and pressured to submit [4].

Children are told by Russian teachers and psychologists that their families will not come for them.  They are threatened that their medication will be withheld, if they do not obey.  Some have even been placed for weeks in solitary confinement.

The children’s identities are erased, and false papers issued.  Russian adoptions are then arranged. Continue reading →

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October 15, 2023 · 1:00 am

Murdered Children and the Indian Child Welfare Act

File:Carlisle pupils.jpg

Pupils at Carlisle Native Industrial School, Pennsylvania (PD)

WARNING:  Graphic Images

From 1869 to the 1960s, hundreds of thousands of Native American children were removed from their parents and placed at boarding schools operated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs [1][2].

There the children were forbidden to use their tribal names, speak their tribal languages, wear their tribal clothing, or practice their tribal religions.  Discipline was generally harsh.  Emotional, physical, and sexual abuse were not unknown.

Though perhaps well intentioned, this cultural genocide (now termed ethnocide) was inexcusable [3][4A].  The trauma to these children was incalculable [4B].

Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA)

The Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) was created as a reaction to such forced assimilation [5][6A][9A].  The purpose of the ICWA was to protect the cultural identity and heritage of Indian tribes [9B].

The ICWA mandates that the state pursue the best interests of the tribe, rather than that of the individual child, in cases of abuse.  Officials must place an abused or neglected child with race-matched foster and adoptive families [6B].

Published guidelines by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, in fact, indicate that child welfare officials should not consider the best interests of the child in placement – irrespective of poverty, substance abuse, or other “non-conforming social behavior” such as crime in the home [9C].

For any child living on a reservation, the tribe has exclusive jurisdiction of child welfare cases [9D]. Continue reading →

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