Indigenous Women in Canada Have Filed a Class Action Lawsuit Over Coerced Sterilization

November 25, 2018

This practice has affected over 60 women and is a product of racism in Canada’s medical system.

Royal University Hospital in Saskatchewan, Canada. Wendy Cooper. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

While Canada is known for its progressive policies surrounding human rights and health care, this assumption can often lead to overlooking the country’s history of institutionalized discrimination against indigenous people.

Recently, sixty women have come forward to join a class action lawsuit against doctors in Saskatchewan demanding compensation for forced sterilization. According to a report in the Guardian, these women have had their fallopian tubes tied, burned, or cut, in public government funded hospitals when they were unable to properly consent. This practice not only violates medical ethics, but Canadian law. Although this practice was exposed in 2015, reported cases have continued up to 2017.

In an interview with NPR, Alisa Lombard, the lawyer representing the women said that, “while they were in the throes of labor, they would be approached, pressured, harassed to sign consent forms [for sterilization] in some cases. In other cases, there was no such signing of a consent form. And in yet other cases, they would revoke consent either on the operating table or shortly after they had actually signed.”

This new occurrence of forced sterilization follows a disturbing trend of forced or coerced sterilization that has disproportionately affected - if not only affected - women of color, women with disabilities, incarcerated women, and indigenous women. It stems from the eugenics movement of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that used racist and ableist ideology to justify forced sterilization of people that were not seen as ‘fit’ to reproduce. The perpetuation of this warped and inhumane theory has become clearly evident in Canada’s upcoming lawsuit.

According to Lombard, “When Indigenous women go in for these health care services and reproductive health care services in the most vulnerable state, I think, a woman can be - having gone through childbirth myself, I can say that this is not the time to have a conversation about whether you ever want to do that again. There are other better times. And so why it happens in one simple word, I think we can just say discrimination - racism, quite plainly.”

Lombard and her team uncovered that Saskatchewan health cards are embossed with a capital R. She says that the R is part of a historic practice indicating that the person holding it is registered as an indigenous person. Thus, the patient’s identity is readily available to their doctor.

While the lawsuit has yet to be certified, Amnesty International said that they would lobby the UN Committee Against Torture in order to pressure the Canadian government to act. According to Amnesty’s Jacqueline Hansen, the organization has examined comparable instances of coerced or forced sterilization in Mexico, Chile, and Peru.

“It’s always done for a very specific reason. It is clear that it’s been linked to policies around wanting to ensure a group of people doesn’t reproduce,” Hansen told the Guardian. “Ultimately, this is about women who are supposed to have the right to make decisions about their bodies, having that right taken away from them.”

EMMA BRUCE is an undergraduate student studying English and marketing at Emerson College in Boston. While not writing she explores the nearest museums, reads poetry, and takes classes at her local dance studio. She is passionate about sustainable travel and can't wait to see where life will take her.

CANADA: The Push

May 31, 2018

A Winter Journey into the Canadian Arctic

I twisted around, trying to free my arms from inside my jacket and bring them up to my head. The two hats I’d been wearing had fallen off and the cold night air now gnawed painfully at my ears. Fumbling inside my sleeping bag, awkwardly moving countless batteries, bottles, and fur boots from underneath me, I eventually found the hats and pulled them down over my ears. Through the numbness of gloved hands, I tried to locate the toggle at the hem of my bag. Several frustrated attempts later, I seized it and pulled the sleeping bag in tighter around me. It was 1.00am and I hadn’t slept a wink.

The sun had set hours earlier and the northern lights had begun their nightly dance across the sky. A glittering green hue shimmered over the pale snow that lay beyond my open tent door. I switched on my head torch and its beam flashed against walls that were stiffened and brittle, encased in a hard veneer of ice. The thermometer showed -30˚C, or maybe just a touch below. Despite my tiredness, this was an incredible place to be: high in Canada’s Northwest Territory, up above the Arctic Circle, camping on a frozen river. I’d spent the past year travelling from the southern tip of South America to this point, now just a few days’ ride away from the frozen shores of the Arctic Sea marking the halfway point to my bike ride around the world. I was following nature’s frozen highways, taking to the ribbons of white that spill out across the land this far north; the rivers that are lifeless until spring when the ice gives way to the thaw.

But lying in that tent, alone, was a scary place to be. The walls began to quiver and shake and, adjusting my hats once more to clear them of my ears, I caught the unmistakable sound of a storm coming in. The gathering violence of the wind crescendoed in a deep, rumbling, basso growl as my tent sprung to life, buckling under the growing pressure. I peered out of the door to see no more green light dancing, no more stars shining overhead. Clouds had already gathered and I struggled to make out the banks of the river from where I lay. I quickly zipped the door closed, crawled into my bag and lay there, eyes wide open, listening to what was coming.

The roar was overwhelming – chillingly thunderous and seemingly intent on tearing apart my diminutive shelter. Ice and snow shook free from the walls, showering me, pulsating and shivering likes motes in a snow globe. I lay utterly still, gripping the insides of my bag. I closed my eyes, trying not to imagine just how far away from help I was. I knew then that this storm, which had been forecast to hit some days from now, would be a game-changer. The thin cut of clear navigable ice I’d been cycling on down the river would be swamped. I knew I was stuck.

At some point in the early hours of the morning the storm passed, leaving in its savage wake a tent battered and bruised, and hanging limply from buckled poles. I turned over, shifting into a more comfortable position, waiting for sleep to wash over me once more, but in the eerie silence that hung over the landscape I caught a faint, far-off sound. Somewhere in the trees that towered over the river came the unmistakable sound of a wolf’s howl. Shit.

I’d passed through the small village of Fort McPherson the day before and there I’d been approached by a man. He’d heard about my ride and had come to impart some advice: be careful of those damn wolves, he told me. It’s been a long winter and they’ll be getting hungry. He then offered me his gun, but I couldn’t tell if he was being serious or not, so politely refused. He slapped me hard on the back and went on his way, but the image of wolves prowling the snow and ice ahead lingered. Now, the howls clung to the night air, first intensifying and growing louder, then joined by yet more cries. I fixed shut my eyes, willing the noise away, berating my mind for leaping to all sorts of unpalatable conclusions. I was gripped by a cold, dark fear, but eventually, mercifully, the baying faded.

When morning finally arrived, and my eyes flashed open, I knew what lay ahead of me. I’d ridden roughly 100km from that last village, and the next one was about 60km further on. My ride down the river was supposed to be for only two days. I’d packed food for three, just to be sure. Crawling out of my tent I squeezed my feet painfully into frozen boots, old, second-hand army things, and took a few steps. My feet broke through the barely frozen crust and plunged into deep, crystalline snow beneath. Where bare ice had been the previous day, the only possible passage I had down the river had been swallowed up in the night, engulfed in thick, pillow drift snow; the wilderness had asserted its authority once more. I began melting snow to make breakfast and took stock of my situation. I had two days’ of food, 60km remaining distance to cover, and a 50kg bike. The snow was deep and soft; I knew I wasn’t going to be breaking any speed records. I grabbed a handful of oats and threw them in my pot – it didn’t look like much, but it was time to start rationing. I guessed I’d be pushing for four days, so unless I happened to stumble upon a miraculously well-stocked winter cabin, I had to make two days’ worth of food stretch.

It was tough to get going that morning, to get the tent packed away onto the bike, to leave my warm sleeping bag knowing what lay ahead. I won’t lie: I was unnerved by my situation, perhaps even scared. I knew how far out of my depth I was – a couple of lapses in concentration, exposing my fingers, face, or feet for too long, would be disastrous out here. I picked up the bike and stood it in the snow. It was time to start pushing.

That first day went by surprisingly easily. I made slow progress through the snow, but it was progress nonetheless. Somehow I managed to flick the ‘positive’ switch in my brain; I was overwhelmed neither by the cold, nor the hunger, not even by the relentless fear of wolves. But when that first day was done, when I was again tucked up in my sleeping bag, that switch turned off. Adrenaline seeped away. Those fears bloomed fresh and savage again and a sense of hopelessness washed over me. I’d come to the Arctic in winter to challenge myself, and to see a place few get the opportunity to experience. I had come in search of romantic solitude, to live within the pages of a Jack London novel; to travel through a land so culturally prominent in our ideas of adventure and heroism. Stuck on this desolate river, far away from friends and family, I realised that rather than experiencing sweet solitude, I was desperately lonely. All that had compelled me to come here, the emptiness, the beauty, the challenge, now towered over me and threatened to crush me into submission. Words jumped from Jack London’s pen that I instantly knew to be true: ‘The unending vastness crushed him into the remotest recesses of his own mind, pressing out all the false ardours and undue self values until he perceived himself finite.’

For three days I pushed my bike, by inches closer and closer, painfully slowly against a backdrop so vast I felt like an inadvertent drop of paint on a pure white canvas. Late on that third day, tired, lost, and seized by loneliness, I made out two bobbing lights closing in on me. I lifted the goggles from my face to make sure I wasn’t imagining it. Yet there they were, two lights approaching, and with them two men on snowmobiles. I waved and pushed my bike forward. They pulled alongside, switched off their engines, and beamed at me. I was confused. I couldn’t figure out what they were doing there. ‘We’re the local Search and Rescue team,’ one said. ‘We came to find you’.

I was stunned. I later discovered that news of my journey had reached the town of Aklavik and, worried I’d not been seen since before the storm, the local police had dispatched a local Search and Rescue team to find me. They radioed back to the village and their words almost made me laugh: ‘We’ve found the guy here on Husky River, we’ll see if he wants a ride.’ They told me that the village was only a couple of kilometres away and that I’d pretty much made it. I didn’t think twice about jumping on the back of their snowmobiles. I wanted nothing more than to get off this river that had trapped me for three days as quickly as possible. As I stowed my bike and the rest of my kit, I caught sight of the gear they themselves had brought and I realised then the seriousness of my situation. They carried a gun for the wolves, and a body sled, just in case.

BEN PAGE is a multi-award winning filmmaker, adventurer and photographer based in Yorkshire. He has spent the past few years travelling to some of the world’s remotest corners in search of wild and diverse adventures and experiences, usually on two wheels.

THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON SIDETRACKED

Why Working Your Bag Off Is Spiritual

July 23, 2015

In my favorite book of all time, “Autobiography of a Yogi,” there is a story about a typical 33-year-old man in India who is approached by an enlightened guru who helps him to remember his past lifetimes when he too was an enlightened master. The guru, wanting this man to become enlightened again, materializes all the wealth that the man could ever want, right before his eyes. The guru does this so all of the last earthly desire the man had, which was being wealthy, could be satisfied so he can move past it and onto enlightenment. The guru says that desire is what chains us to the reincarnation wheel.

While some self-identifying spiritual people speak of wanting less, desiring nothing, and frown upon striving for money or material success, I believe satisfying earthly desires can be one the most spiritual things you can do. I don’t mean just trying to have the biggest boat for the sake of being able to say you have the biggest boat. I mean acknowledging your inner desires and looking them right in the eye. And when you feel like attaining them is part of your growth and purpose, GO FOR IT, regardless of whether it is focused on material gain.

While many people cite their darkest hours, such as being on their deathbed or losing everything, as the times they learned what is truly important in life, I had a number of different (you could say opposite) experiences. When I was 25, I busted my ass for 365 days straight selling real estate to reach a highly coveted award level and recieve the big plaque that came with it. After I reached that goal and became the highest grossing new Realtor in North America, I relaxed for the first time in a year and enjoyed it. Well, I enjoyed it until I realized that if I wanted to keep my success going, I would need to go out and bust my hump for another year to win another big award. It was when I reached the top of my game that I realized that the great feeling success brings is temporary, fleeting, not real, illusory. It is not anything close to true happiness.

This scenario played out over and over again in my 20s and I reached higher and higher goals in business, physical fitness, romantic relationships, and finances. However, each success became less and less fulfilling to the point where I said “screw it!”, sold everything, and took up social entrepreneurship full time.

It was largely because of fulfilling huge goals that I abandoned the notion of “more” equaling happiness. It was because of reaching my goals goals that my entire life is now dedicated to service. It’s not that I made a boatload of cash and became a wealthy philanthropist. Heck no. I sold everything I owned to fund my current venture that has now funded 60 schools and libraries in 9 developing countries for 60,000 kids, and I am flat broke because of it.

But, you would not believe how great I sleep at night, with a big, stupid smile on my face.

Why? Because a number in a bank account doesn’t define me. And it doesn’t define you either.

Like the man from the story, I had desires that needed to be fulfilled. Thanks to going after those desires 100%, I can now say with personal experience that money, success, and reaching goals don’t mean squat to me. What matters to me is loving yourself, serving others, and taking pleasure in simplicity.

Striving after material success in my 20s ended up being the most spiritual thing I could have done. It was my way of materializing my desires so I could see the illusion they actually are. I am nowhere closer to enlightenment than anyone reading this, but I do know what makes me happy, and that feels really good.

Roll the Dice: European Edition

Notes On When the World Makes You Feel Small

Taylor is the founder of Change Heroes and Destroy Normal Consulting, which focus on innovative philanthropy and building projects like schools, wells, and libraries all over the developing world. His most recent efforts have seen schools funded in India, Nepal, Kenya, Sierra Leone, and Tanzania, impacting over 30,000 children. He has set foot on every continent, dozens of countries, and has worked as a professional fire fighter, real estate broker, and currently as an avid social entrepreneur.