The Canadian government says it is urgently trying to end the forced sterilization of Indigenous women, describing the practice as a human rights violation and a prosecutable offense. Yet police say they will not pursue a criminal investigation into a recent case in which a doctor apologized for his “unprofessional conduct” in sterilizing an Inuit woman.
In July, The Associated Press reported on the case of an Inuit woman in Yellowknife who had surgery in 2019 aimed at relieving her abdominal pain. The obstetrician-gynecologist, Dr. Andrew Kotaska, did not have the woman’s consent to sterilize her, and he did so over the objections of other medical personnel in the operating room. She is now suing him.
“This is a pivotal case for Canada because it shows that forced sterilization is still happening,” said Dr. Unjali Malhotra, of the First Nations Health Authority in British Columbia. “It’s time that it be treated as a crime.”
Police declined to investigate because there was no criminal complaint filed by the victim.
The victim won’t file a complaint because of the history of the indigenous peoples history with the RMCP.
AFAIK in the US, the police usually reach out to victims and ask if they would like to press charges. Does this not happen in Canada? It would probably make victims more motivated to file reports.
Yes they do reach out.
You fail to see the full history of RCMP and the indigenous peoples.
Canada created the North-West Mounted Police shortly after the west was bought specifically to displace natives and force them into reserves, seperate children from families.
The North-West Mounted Police would later become the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. So now you have this same paramilitary group that harmed you as the main Police force.
So the natives tend to not speak with Police on matters and when they do their issues tend to be ignored, especially in the west where first nation hatred is very strong.
There’s also all those missing indigenous women that police barely look into . There’s probably a serial killer but nothing is being done .
Most of them are indigenous against indigenous violence. RCMP are basically unable to investigate if they wanted to, but it’s Alberta so they probably don’t want to.
Unfortunately, reserves and First Nation culture is extreamly patriarchal where abuses towards women are very common. My family originally left the reserves because of that exact reason.