Native American victims of sex abuse at Catholic boarding schools fight for justice

SIOUX FALLS (SD)
Sioux Falls Argus Leader

May 16, 2019

By Patrick Anderson

DESPITE RECENT ATTEMPTS AT TRANSPARENCY BY SOUTH DAKOTA’S CATHOLIC AUTHORITIES, NATIVE AMERICAN ABUSE VICTIMS ARE STILL WITHOUT ANSWERS.

MARTY—There is a feel to the old place that still haunts her.

Even with construction crews working the earth and birds chirping noisily in the trees above, she can feel the silence.

Behind the silence, sadness and horror.

Louise Charbonneau Aamot rested her fist on the church windowsill as her eyes welled with tears. Its gray steeple cutting into the sky, the church towered over the grounds of the old St. Paul’s Indian Mission boarding school..

The school, tucked away in a woodsy expanse of the Yankton Reservation, is where her childhood was destroyed.

Aamot is not silent.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

Native American victims of sex abuse at Catholic boarding schools fight for justice

SIOUX FALLS (SD)
Sioux Falls Argus Leader

May 16, 2019

By Patrick Anderson

DESPITE RECENT ATTEMPTS AT TRANSPARENCY BY SOUTH DAKOTA’S CATHOLIC AUTHORITIES, NATIVE AMERICAN ABUSE VICTIMS ARE STILL WITHOUT ANSWERS.

MARTY—There is a feel to the old place that still haunts her.

Even with construction crews working the earth and birds chirping noisily in the trees above, she can feel the silence.

Behind the silence, sadness and horror.

Louise Charbonneau Aamot rested her fist on the church windowsill as her eyes welled with tears. Its gray steeple cutting into the sky, the church towered over the grounds of the old St. Paul’s Indian Mission boarding school..

The school, tucked away in a woodsy expanse of the Yankton Reservation, is where her childhood was destroyed.

Aamot is not silent.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.