Ontario human rights chief calls for race-based stats for kids in care
2016/01/12 Leave a comment
More on the need for a diversity lens:
“Systemic and persistent discrimination” is likely involved in a disproportionate number of aboriginal and black children being taken from their families and placed into care, Ontario’s Chief Human Rights Commissioner says.
Ending the trend, Renu Mandhane added, begins with the provincial government collecting race-based data to gauge the full extent of the problem — something it does not currently do.
How can the government and children’s aid societies understand the needs of the children and families they serve — and the discrimination they might be facing — if they don’t know the race and culture of those families, Mandhane asked in an interview with the Star.
“We wouldn’t get involved unless we thought there were elements of systemic and persistent discrimination at play,” Mandhane said, describing her commission’s decision to examine the over-representation of aboriginal and black children in foster homes or group homes.
The human rights commission is the latest in a long list of agencies and community groups to call on the Ministry of Children and Youth Services to collect and make public race-based data. The Children’s Aid Society of Toronto took the step in the summer of 2015 after the Toronto Star revealed that 41.8 per cent of children in its care are black. The city’s under-18 black population, meanwhile, is 8.2 per cent.
Source: Ontario human rights chief calls for race-based stats for kids in care | Toronto Star
Multicultural Meanderings 