On behalf of young people living in Nunavik who have been taken in charge by the Director of Youth Protection (DYP) and those who have not received the necessary services, two Inuit women want to bring a class action against Quebec and Ottawa , denouncing “the long-standing discriminatory treatment of children, adolescents and families” living in this northern region.
Posted at 1:38 p.m.
“This discriminatory treatment is rooted in the indifference and racism that [les gouvernements] have historically demonstrated against the Inuit of Nunavik”, indicates the request for class action filed Monday at the Montreal courthouse.
Governments “failed to provide basic child protection and other social and health services”.
Concretely, Lucy Tookalook and Tanya Jones, the two women who want to represent young Inuit and their families, are claiming from Quebec and Ottawa between $40,000 and $300,000 per person concerned, in compensation for the damages suffered, in addition to punitive damages. .
They allege that the young people cared for by the DYP since 1975 have not received the necessary prevention and protection services, or that they have been removed from their homes and placed in foster families because of the services handicapped in Nunavik, which has led to abuse and neglect, the breakdown of ties with their community, and the loss of their culture and language.
Youth protection services in Nunavik should have received more funding, to take into account their particular situation, in particular because of the intergenerational trauma that its inhabitants have suffered and the fact that it is a remote region, according to them.
“Horrible Abuse”
“Both levels of government have remained blind to the horrific abuses suffered by Inuit children in Nunavik’s child protection system, instead of increasing funding to provide adequate child protection services on an urgent basis. “, can we read in the request for class action.
Inuit children are sometimes removed from their families at birth, as a first resort, which explains the large overrepresentation of Inuit children from Nunavik in the youth protection system, the document also indicates.
“Lucy Tookalook and Tanya Jones themselves suffered the consequences of underfunding and discriminatory neglect,” it also says. They were both taken from their families and placed in foster homes in Nunavik’s deficient youth protection system. As children, they were both traumatized by physical and sexual abuse in the child protection system. Neither received mental health support to deal with the trauma of being taken from their families and abused. »
“Abandoned by a flawed, underfunded and discriminatory system, they became dependent on alcohol and drugs from the age of nine to manage to live with their traumas. »
The two women say they want justice for Inuit children and their parents who have suffered and continue to suffer, like them. They also seek to prevent another generation from being lost to the discriminatory practices of governments.