Canada residential schools: Queen Victoria and Elizabeth II statues toppled over treatment of indigenous children – By Tim Baker (Sky News) / July 2 2021
During protests on Canada Day, crowds in Winnipeg, Manitoba, pulled down statues as the country reflects on the residential school system – in which thousands of indigenous children were abused between the 19th century and the 1970s.
Statues of Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II have been pulled down in Canada amid protests against the country’s treatment of indigenous people.
The demonstrations were against the country’s residential schools system – which saw native children required to attend state-run Christian schools where they were prevented from speaking their own languages in a bid to assimilate them into Canadian society.
Many young people were raped, beaten, verbally abused and suffered malnutrition, and up to 6,000 are thought to have died.
