Raising Aboriginal Children

"I'm ashamed of what he did, you know. Maybe it would have been different if I raised him myself."
Brian McKay, father of Justin Hudson, 20

"This is the hour that we have to call for change. The acts of violence have to stop."
"It is in each and everyone of us, it is our responsibility, to make that change. I urge the Justice Minister, I urge the Premier, I urge the Mayor, I urge the councillors of the city to sit down with the First Nations. Those things are very rare here in Canada."
"We know that some of our young men and young women are involved in some of the activities ... but at the same time, we have to realize that some of these young men and some of these young women have been in the system of going from foster care to foster care to foster care and there's no stability."
"One family is hurt already, two others families are hurt already. We've got to turn this around."
Grand Chief David Harper, northern Manitoba First Nations

From left in front row - Julie Harper (Rinelle's mom), Ceasar Harper (Rinelle's dad), Fred Harper (Rinelle's grandfather) and David Harper (MKO Grand Chief) are shown at the press conference on Nov. 13, 2014.

Aboriginal children -- like their parents who are overrepresented in the prison system in Canada -- represent the majority of children taken into the child welfare system. An annual report released in November by Child and Family Services reveals that in Manitoba alone close to 10,300 children were in foster homes, group homes or emergency shelters in the province, and of that total 90% were aboriginal children.

Parents living on reserves or within larger communities having children and proving themselves inadequate to the obligation to raise those children. Finding partying and drinking much more to their tastes. Instead of the aboriginal communities and their leaders facing this dreadful social-group-culture problem head on, continual accusations of wrong-doing by the government and Canadian society perpetrated on the aboriginal community go the rounds.

Last week a 16-year-old high school student was beaten and left to drown in the Assiniboine River. She crawled out of the river after the violent sexual attack by two young men she had met in a casual conversation on a Winnipeg street after a night out with friends from whom she had become separated. Only to be viciously attacked once again by the two young men, one 20 the other 17, and left for dead. The following morning the horribly injured girl was found by a passerby.

Rinelle Harper, 16, nearly died after she ended up in the frigid waters of the Assiniboine River near the Midtown Bridge. (Handout)

The two men who had so horribly attacked and beaten Rinelle Harper went on that same night to attack yet another 23-old-woman, using the same modus operandi, presenting as friendly, harmless young men engaging a young woman in conversation, then raping and beating her.

In August, a 15-year-old aboriginal student had been murdered, her body found in the Red River. An RCMP report on the murder or disappearances of over 1,100 aboriginal women and girls over the span of several decades led to a public outcry. Many are calling on the government to launch a public inquiry over the seeming disposability of young aboriginal women.

"I can still see her, lying there" said her mother. "I didn't think that was Rinelle, but it was her." Her father had thought his daughter was going to die as a result of her injuries. "The first time I saw her at the hospital I [didn't] know what was going to happen to her. She looked so bad, beaten ... It's really hard to forget [how] I saw her at first."

Rinelle was staying with extended family while away from God's Lake Narrows, a remote community of 88 people 550 km northeast of Winnipeg. She was attending an aboriginal-operated high school in Winnipeg; Southeast Collegiate, a First Nations educational facility. When she had been approached by the two young men and they walked along the banks of the Red River; the attack took place under a bridge.

A 17-year-old who under Canadian law protecting juveniles cannot be named and 20-year-old Justin Hudson have been charged with attempted murder, sexual assault and sexual assault with a weapon. Rinelle Harper no doubt felt comfortable speaking to two strangers, young men she didn't know, but who were part of her aboriginal community of communities.