Duplessis Orphans
Connexipedia article
http://www.connexions.org/CxLibrary/Docs/CxP-DuplessisOrphans.htmResource Type: Article
Cx Number: CX24458
The Duplessis Orphans (French: les Orphelins de Duplessis) were the victims of a scheme in which approximately 20,000 orphaned children were falsely certified as mentally ill by the government of the province of Quebec, Canada, and confined to psychiatric institutions.
Abstract:
Orphanages and schools were the financial responsibility of the provincial government, but funding for mental institutions was provided by the federal government of Canada. Beginning in the 1940s and continuing into the 1960s, Quebec Premier Maurice Duplessis, in cooperation with the Roman Catholic Church which ran the orphanages, developed a scheme to obtain federal funding for thousands of children, most of whom had been "orphaned" through forced separation from their unwed mothers. In some cases the Catholic orphanages were re-labelled as health-care facilities and in other cases the children were shipped from orphanages to existing insane asylums. Years later, long after these institutions were closed, the children who had survived them and become adults began to speak out about the harsh treatment and sexual abuse they endured at the hands of some members of institution's and medical personnel.
Subject Headings
