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Children's home in northern Canada (around 1910)
Photo: PROVINCIAL ARCHIVES OF SASKATCHEWAN / HANDOUT / EPA
Graves - mostly nameless - are still being discovered.
The abuse scandal of indigenous children in homes in Canada is far from being fully resolved.
Now the government is investing billions in processing.
According to a financial report presented on Tuesday, the state is putting back a total of 40 billion Canadian dollars (27.64 billion euros).
Treasury Secretary Chrystia Freeland said half of that amount will be used as compensation for abused children and their families.
The other half is to be used for reforming the home system.
"We know that paying our historical debt to the indigenous peoples is a top priority and that we must act to ensure that these injustices do not recur," Freeland said in a speech.
The funds were set aside to settle a lawsuit over discrimination against indigenous children.
In 2019, a court ordered the government to pay $ 40,000 for every child who was taken away from their parents and placed in foster care outside their indigenous community after 2006.
There was often abuse in the homes
Ottawa asked a federal appeals court in September to overturn the sentence.
At the same time, the government tried to find a negotiated solution with victims' representatives.
These talks are still ongoing.
"Money is not the same as justice," said the indigenous representative and head of the assembly of the so-called First Nations, RoseAnne Archibald, after the announcement of the compensation plans.
"However, it signals that we are on the way to healing."
Since the beginning of the year Canada has been working on the dark chapter of its decades-long policy of forced assimilation of indigenous communities.
As of 1874, around 150,000 native and mixed couple children had been separated from their families and cultures and placed in church homes in order to force them to adapt.
Many of them have been ill-treated or sexually abused.
jok / AFP
