Indigenous Women Rights and Activism | Report

Running head: INDIGENOUS WOMEN
Indigenous Women
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1INDIGENOUS WOMEN
Topic: Indigenous women
Introduction
Aboriginals have faced discrimination and violence since the time of colonization
(Boksa, Joober & Kirmayer, 2015). Even after the democratic government was established,
their reconciliation and assimilation efforts have intensified the trauma and suffering of the
aboriginal population. The aboriginal population comprises about 4% of the total Canadian
population and their development is one of the main concern of the government (Benoit et al.,
2016). Research shows that the governmental efforts have created widespread trauma and
mental health issues among the aboriginal women, which is further affecting the future
generations. The aboriginal women have suffered through violence, domestic abuse, forceful
sterilization and separation from children and many other mental traumas during their
lifetime. The assimilation policy and the later governmental policies have been unable to
address the issues.
Thesis Statement: In this paper, I argue that despite Canadian government policies and
interventions, the indigenous women are still being affected by the mental health issues.
Discussion
Since the 1850s several government interventions has only served to increase the
suffering and cultural loss of the aboriginal population of Canada (Hamdullahpur, Jacobs &
Gill, 2017). The past traumas have affected the mental health of the aboriginals for the many
generations to come. The Doctrine of Assimilation is based on the ideals of dehumanizing the
aboriginals and portray them of being unable to protect their interests and cultural
uniqueness. The doctrine rejected any of the rights that they had and enforced upon them the
European ideas of progress and development (Highlights from the Report of the Royal

2INDIGENOUS WOMEN
Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, 2020). To enforce this policy, the government created
reserves for the aboriginal population which enabled them to stay in an enclosed space. This
created havoc on the minds of the aboriginals as they lost their land and means of living.
Their identity is closely related to the land that they live in which was challenged under the
new policies. This created a loss of self-identity and cultural loss among these people. There
was also loss of language and rituals that connected them to their ancestral culture.
Due to the assimilation policy, the Canadian government saw it fit to separate the
children from their family in order to educate them in Canadian residential schools
(Nelson et al., 2018). The forceful separation created deep impact within the indigenous
women who suffered from stress, depression and separation anxiety due to this experience.
The children too suffered due to their loss of roots and family. Chronic depression and self-
harm became widespread among the aboriginal community. The stress and depression that
the people faced, were transferred hereditarily through generations (Roy, 2019). Studies have
found that parents are able to transfer their trauma and depression to their children which has
resulted to the present issues regarding mental health among the aboriginal women. This was
further intensified by the history of violence, systematic killing and substance abuse of the
aboriginal women. The implications of these have been used for making better policies but
most of them has limited effect on the population.
According to Shahram et al. (2016), studies till date has focused on the substance use
of the aboriginal pregnant women but rarely have they taken into account the life history or
the experiences of these women that leads them to substance abuse in the first place. Most of
the women while recounting their life experiences expressed stress and trauma in balancing
their family roles and the interventions and scrutiny of the governmental agencies that often
disrupted their lives as children as well as mothers. The deep rooted trauma of separation
from their children, created an increased loss of identity as most of the women of the