Rhode Island KIDS COUNT will not be silent as children in our country are violently harmed by government-sanctioned police violence and family separations. Children are the most vulnerable population in any society because they are dependent on adults for protection. In his remarks, Nelson Mandela speaks of Apartheid South Africa, but his reflections can be applied to any government in history that usedpolicies and government policing to harm children. History is a teacher we must listen to.
United States Marshals and Black Children: The Fugitive Slave Act was part of the Compromise of 1850 to avoid a Civil War in the United States. The act mandated that federal Marshals and deputies return escaped enslaved people to their enslavers even if found in free states and ordinary citizens were required to assist in their captures. The law made no distinction for age. Black children, even when born free in the North, were captured and deported to the South and into slavery. Because of the government-sanctioned kidnappings, countless children were separated from their families, and the impact continues to reverberate in the lives of their decedents.[i],[ii],[iii]
United States Federal Agents and Native American Children: Between 1869 and the 1960s, federal agents violently removed or coerced tens of thousands of Native American children from their families and communities to attend boarding schools where they were forced to assimilate and leave behind their Native American languages and cultures. Police raids were a tactic to kidnap Native American children and bring them to boarding schools. Native American children suffered physical, sexual, and emotional abuse while in the schools. At least 973 American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian children died while attending Federal Indian boarding schools.[iv],[v],[vi]
Looking across history and outside of the United States, we see government-sanctioned violence against children – and the trauma this inflicts on the innocent.
Stalin’s Secret Police and the Children of the Holomodor Genocide, 1932-1933: The Holomodor was a man-made famine caused by Stalin’s desire for totalitarian control enforced by an economic policy of harsh quotas for grain production and required dissenting Ukrainian farmers to move from their lands. Stalin’s secret police deported 50,000 farmers to Siberia and food was denied to villages and towns in Ukraine that did not comply with his demands. Children were manipulated and used as pawns to enforce Stalin’s policy by requiring them to report any misconduct or illegal activity of their family members in exchange for food. Homes were ransacked and parents were arrested, exiled, or killed. Children became homeless, died of starvation, and even fell victim to cannibalism. Historians estimate that 4 million Ukrainians died- 28,000 people every day- with at least 30% being children. For the children who survived, some were adopted, assimilated, and suffered trauma into their adulthood.[vii],[viii],[ix],[x],[xi],[xii]
Hitler’s Gestapo and the Children of the Holocaust: Before the rise of Nazism in Germany, policing was decentralized and under the control of local governments. To establish a dictatorship, Hitler and Nazi leaders used emergency decrees to centralize policing, empowering the Gestapo to arrest political opponents and deport Jewish people to ghettos, concentration camps, and killing sites. Some of the men in the Gestapo were police trained while others had little-to-no training. The Gestapo had unchecked power and determined people’s fates. Children were deliberately targeted by the Gestapo as part of Hitler’s “Final Solution”. Children were separated from their families, faced immediate deportation, torture, death or forced into hiding. The Gestapo played a heavy role in the execution of 1.5 million Jewish children.[xiii],[xiv]
The stories of the children that suffered in the past are eerily similar to the children suffering from fear, violence, and family separation today. History does not look favorably on governments, leaders, and supporters that misuse police for personal gain and allow children to be abused and used as political pawns. At Rhode Island KIDS COUNT, we wholeheartedly agree with the American Academy of Pediatrics that “All children held in immigration detention should be immediately released, and these facilities should be permanently shuttered.” Every child should have the opportunity to thrive. It is the responsibility of adults – all adults – to protect and defend our children when the government threatens their well-being.
All kids are our kids.
Join Rhode Island KIDS COUNT in our work to defend and protect children. Here are some ways you can take action today:
[i] https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/fugitive-slave-laws-boston.htm#:~:text=The%20Fugitive%20Slave%20Law%20of%201850%20was,and%20assistance%20of%20state%20and%20local%20authorities
[ii] https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/fugitive-slave-act
[iii] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugitive_Slave_Act_of_1850#:~:text=The%20Act%20was%20one%20of,of%20the%20American%20Civil%20War.
[iv] https://www.bia.gov/sites/default/files/media_document/doi_federal_indian_boarding_school_initiative_investigative_report_vii_final_508_compliant.pdf
[v] https://imprintnews.org/child-trauma-2/investigation-into-indian-boarding-schools/65022#:~:text=Girls%20at%20Yakima%20School%20in,Americans%20during%20World%20War%20II.
[vi] https://boardingschoolhealing.org/us-indian-boarding-school-history/
[vii] Kuzovova, N. (2021). Childhood during the Holodomor 1932–1933 in Ukraine (in the South of Ukraine). Journal of Family History, 47(1), 59-77. https://doi.org/10.1177/03631990211020339 (Original work published 2022)
[viii] https://education.holodomor.ca/introduction/basic-facts/
[ix] https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cdp-2023-0051/
[x] https://www.history.com/articles/ukrainian-famine-stalin
[xi] https://cla.umn.edu/chgs/holocaust-genocide-education/resource-guides/holodomor
[xii] https://openpress.digital.conncoll.edu/beingukraine/chapter/chapter-3/
[xiii] https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/gestapo
[xiv] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_in_the_Holocaust#:~:text=During%20the%20Holocaust%2C%20children%20were,notable%20Nazi%20crimes%20against%20children