The Canadian Child Welfare system has, and continues “to create the conditions that maintain violence in families, in communities, and within Indigenous groups in Canada,” along with so often creating the conditions for the violent victimization of the youth within, or exiting the system. It is one of the ongoing causes of the high rates of gender-based violence that Indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQIA+ people experience. These consequences are exacerbated to the extreme by the apprehension of Indigenous youth and subsequent overrepresentation in the child welfare system; in 2021 it was measured that Indigenous youth make up 53.8% of the Children in care while only representing 7.7% of total youth in Canada.

Statistics

https://www.sac-isc.gc.ca/eng/1541187352297/1541187392851

Rates of Indigenous Children in Care

• Indigenous Children make up 58.8% of youth 0-14 years old in Foster Care, despite making up only 7.7% of general youth 0-14. (Census 2021 Data)
• Between 1989 and 2012, Indigenous kids spent 66 Million nights, or 187,000 years of childhood in foster care. (Final Report MMIWG)

Criminal Justice System

• Just over a third of the children in care have also been involved in the youth justice system. (Final Report MMIWG)
• Rates of convictions are high compared to same age peers, especially for males and gender, race and cultural background interact with criminal justice system involvement.(Exploring Youth Outcomes After Aging-Out of Care)
• Youth in care are detained at higher rates than those not involved in care. However, there is no evidence suggesting that they committed more frequent or severe crimes. (Exploring Youth Outcomes After Aging-Out of Care)
• Children in care were more likely to be involved with the justice system than to graduate from high school. (Final Report MMIWG)

Education

• Youth in care struggle to complete high school - 56 percent of Ontario CrownWards drop out of high school. (Exploring Youth Outcomes After Aging-Out of Care)
• Being a former foster child is a significantly larger obstacle to post-secondary achievement than living in a low-income family, being a first-generation newcomer student, or being a particular gender or race alone.(Exploring Youth Outcomes After Aging-Out of Care)

Poverty, Under Employment and Homelessness

• Rates of homelessness are elevated for youth who have aged-out.(Exploring Youth Outcomes After Aging-Out of Care)
• The Canadian Observatory on Homelessness’s national youth homelessness survey, conducted in 2015, found that almost 60% of the 1,103 homeless youth (ages 13 to 24) surveyed in nine provinces and Nunavut had previous or current involvement with child welfare.
• Unemployment and underemployment is higher among youth who age-out of care compared to their same age peers as well as peers from other disadvantaged backgrounds.(Exploring Youth Outcomes After Aging-Out of Care)
• Early pregnancy suppresses employment for the majority of aged-out women.(Exploring Youth Outcomes After Aging-Out of Care)
• Criminal convictions suppress employment for the majority of aged-out men.(Exploring Youth Outcomes After Aging-Out of Care)

Other

• Former foster youth are four times more likely than the general population to engage in transactional sex.(Exploring Youth Outcomes After Aging-Out of Care)

Effects of Gender-Based Violence Against Indigenous People

We can analyze the impacts of the Child Welfare System on Gender based Violence against Indigenous Women, Girls and 2SLGBTQIA+ people by using the four pathways framework from the Final Report of the Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls .

1. historical, multigenerational, and intergenerational trauma;

The Child Welfare system often contributes to the intergenerational trauma experienced by many individuals. This happens through the effect of the apprehension of children from their families, and often communities and cultures, both for the children apprehended and their families and communities. Many children experience trauma in their time in care through the forms of isolation and loneliness, abuse from their guardians and more.

1. social and economic marginalization;

As is outlined in the statistics section, participation in the Child Welfare system as a youth is strongly correlated with poverty, underemployment and homelessness which together embody social and economic marginalization.

1. maintaining the status quo and institutional lack of will; and

The institutions described in this pathway to Women, Girls and 2SLGBTQIA+ people experiencing violence includes the Child Welfare system. This is a system in which there is extreme overrepresentation of Indigenous kids, with so many negative correlations to future outcomes and little being done to on the part of the institution itself, and the government to change these growing statistics.

1. ignoring the agency and expertise of Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people.

The placement so many Indigenous youth in this system, when there are so many Indigenous women and mothers speaking out about the harm that this institution is doing to children is ignoring the agency of these people.