Factors That May Be Responsible For Aboriginal Suicide

Aboriginal people represent less than 3% of the total population in BC. Yet, they account for more than 9% of all suicides in BC (Chandler). The numbers of suicides amongst aboriginal youth are even more alarming – nearly one-fourth of all youth suicides in BC are committed by aboriginals and more than half of all aboriginal suicides are committed by youth (Chandler). The fact that indigenous communities in Canada have the highest rate of suicide of any culturally identifiable group in the world

Aboriginal youth living on reservations today, are living with the controls and limitations that may be detrimental for their further or current success in education, as in a comparison to the rest of Canadian youth who have access to a wide array of resources provided to them. This may include more teachers, which have a higher standards of testing, “the teachers who are trained exclusively in provincially accredited teachers colleges aren’t trained properly…to teach in our schools and our kids

Acknowledgement — Seeing that youth suicide rates amongst Aboriginal youth are five to seven times higher than non-Aboriginal youth, and Inuit youth are among the highest in the world, at 11 times the national average, there are several contributing attributes that should be further researched. (Health Canada, 2013) One of the contributing factors that are discussed in many Aboriginal courses is that of identity. Aboriginal youth who face high levels of intergenerational trauma due to the RS system

characteristic in common. The Aboriginal youth population has been selected for the purpose of this assignment. An indigenous Australian is defined as a person who is of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent, who identifies as being of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander origin, or has been accepted by the community with which the person has been associating with (ABS, 2010). Demographics: The Indigenous Population of Australia is composed of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples

Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islanders currently suffer from inequalities in health status in Australia The population of indigenous people in Australia is severely decreased than the non-Indigenous population. Population of Indigenous people in Australia as of June 2014 State/territory Number of Indigenous people Proportion (%) of Indigenous population living in that state/territory Proportion (%) of state/territory population that are Indigenous Source: ABS, 2014 [5] NSW 220,902 31.0 2.9 Vic

"This week we know what Australia looks like. This week Australia is a boy in a hood in a cell. This week Australia is Aboriginal boys tear gassed, locked down and beaten. These are the images on our television screens. The boys who look like my boys.” (Mitchell, 2016). Stan Grant’s impassioned speech on 29 July, 2016 reported by Mitchell (2016) emphasised yet again the complex relationship between Indigenous Australian young people [IAYP] and structural inequality leading to disadvantage on every

until later. Another ‘bad’ type of death is suicide, and this was one of the main causes of death at residential schools and it still remains high in Aboriginal communities. “In British Columbia, for example, the suicide rate amongst First Nations youth is 5 to 20 times the average found in the non-Aboriginal population” (Chandler, Lalonde, Sokol, & Hallett, 2003 as cited in Chandler & Lalonde, 2008 as cited in di Tomasso & Hodgins, 2016b, p.). Death/suicide was just one risk that the students dealt

Indigenous children still maintained their cultural roots and kept their language while at home. This governmental need for assimilation has had lasting impacts far beyond the scope of active residential schools. Neeganagwedgin notes, “while the schools may be physically closed, the legacy lingers” (34). Beyond this, she urges, present-day institutions still function in a way that continues to undermine and systematically deny, “Indigenous peoples their inherent rights as First Peoples” (Neeganagwedgin

has become a serious issue in indigenous Australians in Australia. According to the Australian human rights commission (2001), indigenous people were three times more than non- indigenous Australians. Compared with all the population in the world, aboriginal Australians have the fourth highest rate of type 2 diabetes. Around 10% to 30% of them are diagnosed with diabetes and many of them will have the disease in early age (Better Health Channel, 2011). Based on the truths stated above, it shows that

can see the separation between ethnicity, and wealth which determines class. Studies show that predominately the British and French Canadians earn the highest levels of income whereas the Africans, certain Asian groups, Latin Americans, and Aboriginals consistently rank near the bottom (Macionis & Gerber, 2006).   In recent years, there has been an increase in income inequality with the 14 percent of impoverished Canadians in the lower social classes of families headed by single mothers