No, this picture does not show indigenous children taken away from their parents in 2018
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on February 19, 2019 at 20:02
- 1 min read
- By AFP Canada
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“Indigenous children taken away from their parents”: a composite photograph, posted by a woman claiming to be a resident of Canada and shared by thousands of Facebook users, juxtaposes two pictures with the same caption, alleging the children pictured were taken in the 1900s and in 2018.
While the top picture, taken around 1900, does show students from the Carlisle Indian School, a boarding school located in Pennsylvania which aimed to assimilate Native American youth into mainstream American culture, the lower photograph was not taken in 2018 and does not show indigenous children taken away from their parents. It actually depicts Central American migrant children held in a detention center in the US state of Arizona in 2014.
This picture was also used out of context in May 2018 to criticize US President Donald Trump’s migration policy at the southern border and was debunked by the president himself.
The actual photo can be found on the website of the Associated Press and is credited to photographer Ross D. Franklin.
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