Millennial Scoop

This is how, systematically, I became a target.

Just one story, of hundreds of thousands, just like me. 

At 6 months old, I was taken by Child Protective Services during the Millennial Scoop. My Indigenous mother was “unfit” to care for me & siblings. As a matter of fact, the vast majority of Indigenous children in Canada were all apprehended and placed into government care off-reserves/away from our culture/languages. 

I would soon live with about 30 different non-Indigenous families between 6 months and 12 years old. Not all of these families were great, happy, secure or safe families. (Some were. They were a blessing). But during that process, I can’t fully explain to you all what that did to my self worth. Being shipped around house to house as if no one wanted me. You don’t understand as a child what’s going on. I didn’t. 

As a child in custody, there is a pressure to pretend everything is okay, so I could return back to my mother. Doing well in school and taking responsibilities at home to protect my sister. Putting on a brave face. Boy, have I heard that one too many times to count. 

By the time I turned 13, I was boiling underneath the surface from the pressure of holding it all together for the family. I turned into this little rebel. I ran away from home, I shaved my head, I listened to punk rock. I was angry at the world. I felt like it failed me.

I wasn’t wrong. 

Girls like me are easy targets for men who prey on vulnerable women because we’ve lost of self worth. We don’t have any stability and any attention paid feels like the love we longing ached for as broken children. I ended up making horrible decisions trying to be loved. Trying to feel like I belonged somewhere. Trying to fit in. Trying to find home. 

The system did nothing but break me down. And as I have to pick up the pieces of my broken life myself, I vow, as a healing Indigenous woman who is fighting this system through my art, my words and sharing, I don’t want anyone else to become a target. This conversation needs to happen. We cannot rip families apart through racist policies. 

Our women and girls are sacred. 

We have to treat them so.  

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