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	Child-On-Child Assault Cases Come to Light in Residential School Hearings By Bill Curry Globe and Mail May 25, 2010 http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/child-on-child-assault-cases-come-to-light-in-residential-school-hearings/article1579562/ As many as 20 per cent of the physical and sexual abuse claims flooding in from Indian residential school students seeking additional compensation involve child-on-child assault, says Canada's chief adjudicator of a special process set up for students who faced the worst abuses. Though the schools closed decades ago and thousands of former students are no longer living, Dan Ish's adjudication secretariat – created as part of a multibillion-dollar out-of-court settlement in 2006 between churches, schools and Ottawa – has already received about 15,000 applications. Roughly a third of the applicants have had hearings so far through what is called the Independent Assessment Process, resulting in $500-million in compensation. Those hearings offer the first sense of the scope of child-on-child abuse at the schools. "I wouldn't be surprised if it comes in at around 20 per cent," Mr. Ish said in an interview with The Globe and Mail. There have been many stories over the years about priests and dormitory employees abusing the children who were forced to leave their homes as part of a federal government policy to assimilate aboriginals. What is rarely discussed is that many aboriginal children were also assaulted by their schoolmates. The 20-per-cent estimate shows that there is still much to be learned about this part of Canadian history as a special Truth and Reconciliation Commission prepares its first national gathering, after years of false starts since it was first announced in the 2006 settlement. Former students from across the country will gather June 15 at the Forks, a historical aboriginal gathering place in Winnipeg, for four days of storytelling and ceremonies. The commission will also host six other national events over the next five years, including stops in Alberta, British Columbia, the Maritimes, northern Canada, Quebec and Saskatchewan. Samaya Jardey, executive director of the West Vancouver-based Indian Residential School Survivors Society, has sat in on the abuse hearings with former students, and said Mr. Ish's estimate of 20 per cent sounds about right. Ms. Jardey said she hopes this part of the history will be raised during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's gatherings. "We would hope that regarding student-on-student abuse, … that would also be part of the record that the TRC gathers," she said, explaining that past compensation processes did not encourage people to bring such stories forward, and that community connections to former abusers also make these stories particularly difficult to tell. The Independent Assessment Process is different from pre-settlement compensation processes in that it clearly allows payments for student-on-student abuse, provided the adjudicator is convinced that those in charge should have known about the abuse and failed to act. Ms. Jardey said that in her experience working with former students, every case of abuse by aboriginal students could be traced back to abuse by non-aboriginal school leaders. "What we have found is that when we've heard about disclosures of student-on-student abuse … they also were sexually abused in the schools by a priest, or nun, or somebody who was working at the school," she said. Mr. Ish, who receives all the abuse reports, said he could not confirm that non-native school leaders were the original cause of all student-on-student abuse. "It could be right, it could be wrong. I just don't know," he said. "It's complicated, it's bizarre and it's really sad, but I think it's overly simplistic for anybody to try and say it was because of this one thing … I think it's way more complex than that."
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