From the 1830s until the 1990s, the Canadian government forcibly removed from their parents 130,000 Indigenous children aged 4 to 16—and detained them in residential schools.

Parents who resisted were arrested. Thousands of children died, most of them from disease, others from malnutrition, forced labor, or violence. They were thrown into unmarked graves. Many parents were never told what happened.

Nearly all the children suffered depraved abuse and neglect.