Decades of abuse unfold

CANADA
Medicine Hat News

ALEX McCUAIG
amccuaig@medicinehatnews.comTwitter:MHNMcCuaig

For generations, First Nations, Inuit and MŽtis children were subjected to emotional, physical and sexual assaults while attending Canada’s residential schools. Starting Wednesday, local survivors will get the opportunity to share their experiences as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission visits Lethbridge.

“They tried to protect me my sister and another girl three or four years older but they couldn’t protect me 24 hours a day,” said a local woman the News is identifying as “Gina.”

“But they couldn’t protect me at three or four o’clock in the morning. The nuns and the priests had the power to do whatever they wanted and they got away with it for years.”

Originally from the North West Territories, Gina says she was taken from her family when she was four years old and subjected to physical and sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic nuns and priests who ran the schools.

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