Members of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission approached the United Nations on April 27 at the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues to see if the global community could support an international forum to deal with the legacy of Aboriginal abuse.
The request came from Justice Murray Sinclair of Manitoba, the lead commissioner of the Commission who was appointed to his position along with two others by Indian and Northern Affairs to deal with the legacy of the residential school system in Canada.
Since Canada began probing into the rampant physical and sexual abuse that many First Nations children faced while attending residential school, an estimated 50 other countries have began their own truth and reconciliation commissions to deal with similar abuse that Indigenous children endured at boarding schools.
