Kathy Mallett on Confronting the Winnipeg Children’s Aid Society

This three and a half minute audio clip features Kathy Mallett talking about a specific moment in the struggle by indigenous people, mostly women, in the early 1980s against the attacks on Native families by the Winnipeg Children’s Aid Society. Attacks on indigenous communities and families by child welfare authorities became prevalent in Canada in the 1960s, and control over child welfare was a demand from indigenous organizations in Canada since at least the early 1970s. Organizing in Winnipeg reached a new level of intensity after the death of a Native girl in CAS custody in 1982. In this clip, Mallett talks about a high profile action in which indigenous community members confronted the CAS at the organization’s 1983 annual general meeting.