Government evils existed in the world over centuries, and still existing today. IN CANADA HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF INNOCENT CHILDREN WERE FOREVER SILENCED, their lives are cut short and their promising futures annihilated. We must never forget, for "those Whose Lives Were destroyed, also by Those That Have to suffer for the rest of Their Lives.” The past are condemned to repeat it.
“Education
is dangerous - Every educated person is a future enemy”- Hermann Goering
More than 250
B.C. foster children were victims of sexualized violence over the four years
B.C.
Representative for Children and Youth Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond listens during a
news conference after releasing a joint report with the B.C. Information and
Privacy Commissioner about cyberbullying, in Vancouver, B.C., on Friday
November 13, 2015. They are recommending the provincial government develop a
cross-ministry strategy to prevent and mitigate the effects of cyberbullying
and educate children and youth on digital citizenship.DARRYL DYCK / Vancouver
Sun
Source:
Representative for Children and Youth report / Vancouver Sun
More than 250
B.C. foster children were victims of sexualized violence over the four years
documented in a disturbing new report — an increasing trend that demands
improved response and treatment, the children’s representative says.
What
luck for the rulers that men do not think.
“The fact that
response is so poor and the reported level is coming up, suggests there’s some
need to make some investment here,” representative Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond
said Tuesday while releasing her latest report, Too Many Victims.
“B.C. should not
tolerate or accept sexual victimization of children. The only way that will
change is that we … do not sweep it under the carpet. Clearly, this report
is about victims who have been swept under the carpet.”
The document counted
145 reports of sexualized violence against foster children from 2011-2014, the
majority of the incidents against aboriginal girls. In 2015-16, there were
another 112 reports of sexual assault, sexual abuse or sexual exploitation.
While Children’s
Minister Stephanie Cadieux said even one complaint is one too many, she noted
her ministry has “rigorous standards” to assess caregivers, such as criminal
record checks, home studies and training.
The government is
also implementing new measures to strengthen the system, she said, including
updated standards for social workers who monitor foster parents; an expanded
audit program; and revised protocols for responding to allegations of harm
in foster homes.
“We need to
ensure we are doing all we can to make our system of care a safe haven for
these children and youth,” Cadieux said.
The high number
of reports in 2015 isn’t proof of more abuse, she said in an interview,
but of a better information-gathering system that social workers started
using last year.
Past government
reports have indicated that the sexual abuse of children in government
care is a long-standing concern. B.C.’s Public Guardian and Trustee provided legal services to 557 youth, nearly
all in the care of the province, who were victims of sexual assault between
2007 and 2012.
Turpel-Lafond, a
former provincial court judge, said the number of victims, in reality, are
likely much higher, estimating that only 10 per cent of sexual victimization
gets reported to authorities.
The report
details the “pervasiveness” of this problem, she said, and “the lack of
both prevention and protective support.”
Training and
resources need to be stepped up not only for social workers, but also for those
in the education, health and legal system, so cases can be
seen successfully through the courts.
The 145 reports
in 2011-2014 involved 121 victims, and Turpel-Lafond’s findings about those
cases are disturbing:
• Ninety per cent
of the victims were girls, and a staggering two-thirds of those were
aboriginal. Abuse was reported by 23 kids between three and 12, while the rest
were disclosed in the victims’ teen years.
• The alleged
abuser was someone known to the children in nearly all the cases,
including acquaintances, other children in the home, family members, friends
and foster parents.
• Twenty per cent
of the victims later harmed themselves or attempted suicide; more than half had
addictions, and nearly three-quarters had a mental illness. The victims had
unstable lives, moving between foster or group homes an average of eight times
each over their youth.
• The sexualized
violence occurred both inside care homes and outside throughout B.C., although
more incidents were reported in cities such as Vancouver, Surrey, Prince George
and Burnaby.
•
Assistance such as counselling was offered to victims in three-quarters of
the cases, but specific sexualized-violence services were rarely offered.
Turpel-Lafond
recommended the creation of a network of child and youth advocacy centres in
B.C., such as the Sheldon Kennedy Centre in Calgary; and a lead
government minister to create a strategy to prevent sexualized violence against
foster children, especially aboriginal girls.
Cadieux said the
government would examine these recommendations.
NDP critic
Melanie Mark said many government ministries need to work together to end this
violence, starting with social workers and ending with the courts.
“The staggering
numbers here are the aboriginal victims,” she said. “And here we are
in the wake of the missing and murdered aboriginal women’s inquiry.”
Indigenous
Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett cited Turpel-Lafond’s report in Question
Period in Ottawa on Tuesday as one of the reasons Canada needs to take
action immediately to protect vulnerable aboriginal girls and women.
Bennett called the report “devastating.”
The B.C. Teachers
Federation renewed
its call for Cadieux’s resignation, alleging her ministry is failing
to protect children.
Some of the
examples cited in the report:
• Brianna,
8, and her three-year-old brother, Avery, were placed in care with extended
family members. Three years later, Brianna told her foster father that they had
both been sexually abused by an older foster brother. Brianna contracted
chlamydia and developed PTSD.
• Rowan, who
entered care at age six and has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder,
revealed at age 11 he had been abused by an older foster boy who had since left
care. The offender was convicted of sexual assault.
• Eva, born
deaf and with a mental illness, told her foster mother that a relief caregiver
had repeatedly touched her inappropriately and exposed himself. Police made a
report to Crown counsel, but charges weren’t approved because authorities
believed her “cognitive deficits” would make it difficult to get a conviction.
lculbert@postmedia.com
Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the governments can play.
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