New Indigenous training program educates frontline workers about forced sterilizations

Organizers of a new training program say they hope it helps prepare frontline workers to support Indigenous people who have experienced forced or coerced sterilization.

The Survivors Circle for Reproductive Justice launched the training program at the end of July with the first session in Alberta. The Survivors Circle provides support to survivors of forced and coerced sterilization and advocates for reproductive justice.

"The issue is still a rather unknown issue," said Survivors Circle executive director Harmony Redsky, a member of Wasauksing First Nation in southern Ontario

The program comes on the heels of the passing of legislation to add forced and coerced sterilization to the Criminal Code.

A 2022 Senate report said forced and coerced sterilization disproportionately impacted marginalized groups including Indigenous women, Black and racialized women and people with disabilities.

A study published in May by the Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscaminque (UQAT) documented 77 cases of forced sterilization of First Nations and Inuit women between 1956 and 2023 in Quebec.

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Redsky said the Survivors Circle is focused on broadening people's understanding about consent and what it means today for an Indigenous person accessing the health-care system in Canada.

"There are far more survivors out there than what we know of," Redsky said.

Redsky said the first training session focuses on supporting survivors as they go through their healing journey, from those who've known what happened to them for a long time to those just realizing what happened to them.

"Bringing the awareness and talking about the issue, educating frontline workers about this really supports them to be able to have those discussions with people as they're having that self-realization," Redsky said.

Redsky said the Survivors Circle plans to adapt and deliver the training program for other sectors.

Gloria Chief Moon, who works with the trauma-informed health and cultural support program for the Kainai Blood Tribe in southern Alberta, participated in a virtual training session last month.

"It taught us how to work with survivors, looking at the care, the culture of humility and awareness... really looking at it from a trauma-informed approach," Chief Moon said.

She said she felt the training also gave her the tools and resources to help someone dealing with forced or coerced sterilization if they come to her.

"I think a lot of survivors don't know there are tools and resources available for them, so that way I'm equipped to refer them out to get the proper help that they need," she said.

Chief Moon said the training provided important education about forced sterilization of Indigenous people, something she believes should be available for more health-care workers in Canada.

"Non-Indigenous people in Canada, I don't think really realize what we went through when we look at colonization, forced assimilation," she said.

"Coming from a social work perspective, a lot of people have normalized our history."