More than $2 billion in settlement money is being paid out to more than 325 First Nations in Canada for the Canadian government’s role in not protecting indigenous children in foster care and its role of cultural destruction in residential schools. Great Chief Abram Benedict represents the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne, a First Nation of more than 20,000 residents and Canada’s second-largest indigenous community. Recently, Canada agreed to give $2.5 billion to different First Nations across the country, settling a lawsuit regarding the federal foster care system. The claim was that Canada discriminated against hundreds of indigenous children vs. non-indigenous children. Of the money, several million dollars will go toward Akwesasne’s child welfare system.
The Utah State Legislature passes a bill to address the ‘epidemic’ of missing and murdered Indigenous people. The Utah Legislature passed a bill that hopes to address the state’s high number of missing and murdered Indigenous people. Utah has the eighth highest number of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls cases in the country, according to a national report. Meanwhile, Salt Lake City was listed ninth out of 71 cities with the highest number of cases. HB25 extends the Utah Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls Task Force another year and renames it to the Murdered and Missing Indigenous Relatives Task Force. It passed the House with a 69-5 vote and the Senate with a 27-2 vote.
Those are your headlines at this hour, I’m Colette Keith in the KIPI news center.
