Inquiry into child protection system in Labrador hears from Innu health care leader

SHESHATSHIU, N.L- An inquiry into the treatment of Innu youth in Labrador’s child protection system is hearing today from an Innu woman who says her parents lost control of their lives when they moved to Sheshatshiu in 1960. Mary Pia Benuen is now the primary health director in Sheshatshiu, an Innu community in central Labrador that is home to about 1,200 people. Benuen told the inquiry her parents and their 11 children lived in a tent when they first moved to the community from Davis Inlet in northern Labrador, but she said the family became more fragmented after they moved into a house that had a wood stove but no running water. The 63-year-old woman says her parents eventually became abusive alcoholics, but she recalled how the family seemed to…

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