By André Faust
When we think of child protection, Children’s aid, child social services we tend to think that they are there to protect children, and probably most of the time they do. Unless it is something major where these agencies messed up the public will never hear of it. These agencies hide their “F#@k ups” behind the firewall called privacy and privilege information that protects them from any public scrutiny.
How many foster kids eventually end up as commodities on the human traffic market? According to a 2015 report by Child Welfare Information Gateway;
Children and youth in out-of-home care, who have been removed from their homes because of child abuse or neglect, are at particularly high risk of being trafficked.
Their background of abuse and trauma—coupled with the impermanence of foster care or congregate care. (Child Welfare and Human Trafficking, 2015)
While some would argue that is an American problem we don’t have the problem here in Canada. If it was a problem Child protection would have reported it. The problem is Child protection and other agencies do not keep records and they don’t voluntarily self-disclose where there are issues that could publicly compromise the integrity of the system.
It is very difficult to get information from Canada, Social research has identified indigenous women as a group that is at the greater risk than the rest of the population especially underage indigenous girls. Because of Canada’s secrecy in these matters, we will never know the magnitude of this problem leaving us only to speculate on the numbers.
In a report titled Sex Trafficking of Indigenous Women in Ontario. The US state department in their 2014 Trafficking in Persons Report for Canada has criticized Canada for its lack of comprehensive data collection and has repeatedly recommended Canada address this issue (Sex Trafficking of Indigenous Women in Ontario, 2016).
Without knowing with any certainty the number of underage indigenous women who are involved in human sex trade trafficking and how many were either directly or indirectly connected with child services we are, as a society at a disadvantage to correct the problem.
The findings of an earlier report by Native Women’s Association of Canada seem to suggest that many of the young indigenous girls were recruited from foster care “One of the services that made repeated appearances in the literature as linked to increased vulnerability to being sexually exploited and trafficked were child welfare services and foster care.” (Sexual Exploitation and Trafficking of Aboriginal Women and Girls:, 2014).
Results as such suggest that child protection, either isn’t equipped to deal with human sexual trade trafficking of indigenous women or indigenous women when it comes to protection and prevention is at the bottom of the priorities list.
What is interesting with these child protection agencies is where they ignore issues with aboriginal people the are quick to perform a snatch and grab of kids based on poverty or from anonymous tips In these situations, they tend to take the child out of the frying pan and into the fire.
When these kinds of snatch and grab happen Child protection will attempt to prevent both the child and the parent from seeing each other what conclusions can we draw from that? To make matters worse for the innocent parent(s) is child protection will exclude any evidence that may prove that does not justify. Maybe it is justifiable to destroy the lives of hundreds of families and thousand of lives to save one child.
In New Brunswick, there have been reports that up untile the 90’s child protection would provide children as cheap labour to some New Brunswick families, where the child would be physically abused if they didn’t carry out their assigned duties. Is this still a practice in 2017?
Mr John Gamble has stepped up to the plate and has given a vivid description of his experience as a foster child place in what is nothing short of a labour camp. In the video about half way through the video, he describes in detail his ordeal with some of the foster families that he stayed with.
There are times when the circumstance require that child protection have to instantly remove children. It is understandable why they may have to grab first then ask questions later. The problem comes later when the evidence does not support the removal of the children. Why does it take so long for the parents to get their children back?
References
Child Welfare and Human Trafficking. (2015) (1st ed., p. 3). Washington. Retrieved from https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubPDFs/trafficking.pdf
Gamblin, J My experience as a foster child (video submission 2017)
Sexual Exploitation and Trafficking of Aboriginal Women and Girls:. (2014) (1st ed., p. 32). Retrieved from https://www.nwac.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/2014_NWAC_Human_Trafficking_and_Sexual_Exploitation_Report.pdf
Sex Trafficking of Indigenous Women in Ontario. (2016) (1st ed., p. 11). Toronto. Retrieved from http://www.onwa.ca/upload/documents/report-sex-trafficking-of-indigenous-wom.pdf
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