In Canada, the Indian (Aboriginal) residential schools were a network of "residential" (boarding) schools for Indigenous Canadians (First Nations or "Indians"; Métis and Inuit). The network was funded by the Canadian government's Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, and administered by Christian churches. The residential school system did significant harm to Indigenous children by removing them from their families, depriving them of their ancestral languages, exposing many of them to physical and sexual abuse, and by forcibly enfranchising them.