Indian Adoptions and Foster Care

 

Beginning in the 1940's, several projects, including the Indian Adoption Project, removed hundreds of Native children forcibly from their homes and placed them into white Christian families. This was done under the guise that these children would have greater opportunity and a better life than they could be provided on the reservation with their people. Many of these projects were funded by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. It is estimated that prior to the enactment of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) in 1978, twenty-five to thirty-five percent of all Indian children had been removed and placed in non-native homes. Many of these children were treated poorly and abused; many felt simply out of place and suffered from identity loss and depression. A study conducted in 1980, after the enactment of ICWA, found that nearly half of children victimized by the Indian Adoption Project and others like it suffered from severe mental issues such as depression and more than a quarter had committed suicide.

 

Today, more than 700 American Indian children each year are removed from their homes and placed into foster care in South Dakota. Not only does North Dakota boast the greatest number of Indian children in the foster care system – a rate thirty times higher than any other racial group – it also has the most challenging laws for parents or relatives trying to get their children back. It has become such an issue that in 2014 the United Nations was presented with a report detailing the horror of the situation.