Shafia murder trial reveals Negligence and Failure of Child Protection authorities
The Shafia murder trial now under way, is revealing gross negligence by child welfare authorities in the Kingston area:
In their opening address to the jury last month, prosecutors detailed how staff at Sahar's school twice called youth protection after hearing the girl complain about her home life When Sahar tried to kill herself in May 2008, she got no assistance from her family, and her mother said something to the effect of, "if she wants to die, let her," Fortin testified. Sahar also made other allegations of abuse and alienation from her family, prompting the assistant principal called youth services. Batshaw Youth and Family Centres social worker Jeanne Rowe was sent to the school, where she met Sahar, who pleaded with her not to call her parents. Testifying on Wednesday, Rowe said she explained to Sahar that it is mandatory to contact parents when a report is made. "She was very, very scared of her parents knowing about the report," Rowe testified. "She just denied everything. She just said, 'It's not true. It's not true. I want to go home.'" . ...The following year, just two months before the Shafia siblings died, another school official held a meeting with the family to express concerns that Sahar and Geeti were frequently late or absent from class. Geeti had accumulated 40 absences and was failing all of her classes.
During that meeting, Shafia and Yahya said they didn't know what to do, Nathalie Laramée testified in French through a translator.
The girls opened up once their parents left the room, she said.
"Sahar was telling me, 'You know, Mrs. Laramée, I did not translate everything my father said because there were a lot of lies in this,"' Laramée said. "'Let me repeat to you, my sister and I are afraid in the house. We are afraid when our father is there.'"
At a meeting with Geeti and a teacher two weeks later, the girl begged to be removed from the home, Laramée said.
Having worked in child protection, I cannot comprehend the actions of those responsible for ensuring the safety of this girl. Why was she not removed from the home, with so much evidence of her fear - most glaringly her begging to be removed? I am curious whether there will be an inquiry into the conduct and negligence of child welfare authorities once the trial is concluded.
The worst instance is at the very bottom of the article:
Yes, I heard this yesterday Ghislaine.
I have the usual outrage, the usual anger. I think this kind of horror will repeat until people who turn a blind eye face real consequences for thier inactions.
I read the G&M article this morning about the trial. Those girls were crying for help. Nobody listened. I think an inquiry should be undertaken - what held CPS back? Why didn't they step in? Was it because the father had money? Worry about appearing culturally insensitive? What?
In BC we have way too many similar incidents and they all seem to be related to staff people who are chronically overworked and stressed out from trying to provide care with insufficient resources. Its like the whole system is suffering from PTSD not just many of the people in care.
This seems like more than just someone falling through the cracks due to strained resources. I think Timebandit's question about missplaced cultural senstitivities may be the first one I'd ask.
But you know, I've seen professsionals deny the evidence before their eyes in order to avoid making a difficult decision before, right
in front of me.
One cannot ever rule out plain cowardice.
You know as awful and as imcomplete as the Penn State child rape situation may be, for once criminal charges were made against some of those who turned a blind eye. And that's what has to be done.
And I don't care about the reasons, that's what should be done here. Reasons are for judges to consider if they want to mitigate the sentence, not if charges should be laid.
There are detailed stories every day about the trial evidence in the Montréal media. It's hard to read. And it's hard to know, retrospectively, who should have done what.
Besides police and child services, what about teachers? Read this and tell me what you would have done:
Teen declined offer of help, saying ‘nothing to be done’
There's much more, if you have the time and the strength to read it all.
good idea and we can start with a few catholic bishops
While I agree that this might be merely an individual screwing up (for whatever reason) my experience and gut reaction is that there is a systemic problem that underlies and allows things like this to happen.
To me it it is like plane crashes. Investigations almost always show a component of human error but inevitably there is at least one other failure in the safety procedures. To have this kind of outcome more than one thing failed this young woman.
I'm sure it was a combination of factors, and that's just one. Also that papa had a lot of money and would surely fight them on this. I remember it being noted in the article about the oldest daughter's stay in a women's shelter that she had expensive clothes, cel phone, etc. and how that really stuck out at the shelter - and then she returned to the abusive home. I wonder if their wealth didn't make them look like obvious rescue cases and that factored in as well.
Still, I hope that teacher doesn't sleep well. She could have waded in. She chose not to.
I can't help wondering what tipped the balance between action vs inaction on her part and the part of the police and CPS.
Before this trope takes on a life of its own, it's incumbent on me to ask: has there been one iota of evidence that society's failure to rescue these girls from a sociopathic and murderous father had anything to do with "cultural sensitivity"?
I have little doubt that its racialized element strongly influences why this story has such a grip on the public imagination, but I have seen no evidence that it has anything to do with the crime itself.
Culture is inherent in the crime itself.
Violence against women is culturally exclusive to Islam? Surely babble can do better than this archaic and orientalist canard.
Put the straw man away, Catchfire. Mods should know better than that.
What I said was that culture is inherent in these murders - the ones being described as an "honour killings".
I said nothing about violence against women being exclusive to Islam. Clearly, it isn't. And surely babble can do better than play silly buggers with the obvious.
It boggles the mind. I think we've all seen or heard of cases where children have been removed from a home for much less-- even for unclear reasons.
Maybe in this case, the fact that two agencies were involved-- the police and youth services-- each looked to the other to lay charges, and thought "well... if they think it isn't necessary, then I don't..."
In which case the officer is the one who is most culpable. There was physical evidence of abuse. He didn't make an arrest.
Guilty.
That is one reason it boggled my mind, Tommy. Having worked in the field (and one reason I left), was the sometimes unnecessary involvement by child welfare (ie the only issue is poverty, no abuse and the only neglect stems from lack of money). So, my perspective (coming from a practicum in one province and experience working in another) was that they erred more often than not on the side of intervention - even when the intervention was questionable.
Catchfire: doesn't your response prove the point? Perhaps teachers, social workers, police, etc. were wary of encountering a similar response? Ie - that their intervention would be culturally biased, racially based, etc.? I don't think other babblers here are saying that Islam is inherently oppressive to women, my take is that perhaps those involved were so concerned with NOT appeared biased that they missed some glaring abuse?
A couple and their child are accused of brutally murdering three daughters and the live-in ex-wife, and you think the public is interested because of "race"? Give your head a serious shake.
Also keep in mind, that the father denied that the older murdered woman was his wife. She was identified as a cousin.
To touch on the subject of another thread, I don't believe the murdered women was an ex-wife, but rather the first wife in a polygamous family.
Are you for real? Aside from the usual MSM labelling of this crime as an "honour killing," it took exactly three posts for babblers--who should be more politically astute than the MSM--to introduce race and culture into the conversation.
ETA. And thanks for your concern about mods, Timebandit. It's filed away as usual. I'm a bit puzzled by your logic--how does your assertion that there is a "cultural" motive to violence against women here support the assertion that the community failed to respond adequately to warning signs before the allegedly "cultural" crime even took place? I still don't see any evidence.
Catchfire, I've got news for you. Culture is definitely involved in this case. Do you realize how "in denial" someone would sound if they argued that it wasn't? Race is not involved. Neither is religion. Make some distinctions - it's a valuable human quality. Oh, and in reply to your first question: Yes, last time I checked, I'm for real.
I'm sorry, Unionist. I must be dense. I have no idea what you are saying.
I think the question put was what was going on in the minds of the police and youth services at the time they were presented with physical evidence of abuse. And putting the victims with the alleged abusers to clarify what went on seems damned strange, and it leads to speculation.
And because it seems so inexplicable, it's fair to wonder if the police and youth services were in some wierd way afraid of being accused of racism or cultural insensitivity if they took the kids then and there, and laid charges. Maybe there is another explanation but it's hard to imagine one-- there is, like I said above, just plain cowardice. Always an alternative.
Now, I think there are those who would use this to jump to the conclusion "cultural sensitivity bad" but I think those people don't have to leap that way, they are already there. And I don't think any of us here are using this in that way or intend to.
Speculation is fine, of course, and, in fact, 95% of what babble is for. I merely spoke up because that line had been picked up by several posters and was quickly becoming less and less speculative and more and more factual. That's why I asked for evidence. My own speculation would be that it's much more likely that those involved who did not speak up--if indeed there is anything that is abnormal about their reaction anyway and that they wouldn't have acted this way in any abusive situation regardless of the family's background--did it because of the opposite reason. That is, that the Shafias weren't pursued beforehand because of their otherness, and not because of ignoring it.
I'm a bit baffled as to how imagined cultural insensitivity would function at all, to be honest. "I shouldn't mention these bruises because people might think I'm racist"? Is that the logic? I would imagine its much easier, and much more common, to think "Who can say anything about what those people do?"
"I'm a bit baffled as to how imagined cultural insensitivity would function at all, to be honest. "I shouldn't mention these bruises because people might think I'm racist"? Is that the logic? I would imagine its much easier, and much more common, to think "Who can say anything about what those people do?" "
I was thinking rather that they might be thinking that if they took these kids from thier family, they'd be accused of racism-- and the bruises would seem to get smaller, and the list of alternative causes might grow in thier minds, until the cops looked to youth services to lay charges, and youth services looked to the cops to lay charges, and each party seeing none coming forward, got out Pilot's bowl and washed thier hands of the matter.
I think that a more common human thought process than the one you describe, Catchfire, at least in this case. I don't believe people are generally bad, but that they have to work at it.
It's an oddly optimistic view, but one I prefer over yours. And, it does come down to preference-- experience and such in the end.
I work with people you describe, who would say "Who can say anything about what those people do?" Only they'd be use more graphic and detestable language in place of "those people". But I don't know one who would put up with someone of any colour, culture, religion or whatever abusing kids, or turning their back on it.
That takes a different kind of mind. One that thinks it's good.
Thanks, Tommy, for articulating pretty much what I was getting at.
Here what i think that happen
1. The father suffer of serious insecurity facing his identity and position, in order to secure himseft, he use religion to justifie a believe in being a superior gender over the feminin gender and justifie the domination over the other gender.
2. He transmit his insecurity and fanatism to his son through education.
3. His ex wife and his two dauther begin to live like western style and begin to rebel again the sick domination
4. Loosing domination he and his son and the submitted second wive start feeling insecure
5. In order to regan dominance they increase the abuse n order to broke them.
6. The daugthers react and ask for help.
7. Through specific abuse he manage to temporary regain domination.
8. Knowning that he will sooner or later lose the domination, He and his son agree to exerce the utimate form of domination, Murder.
It wasn't a concern, it was a statement of fact. Your response to me made the assumption that I said something that I did not. It was a straw man argument, a fallacious argument. It is inappropriate for anyone to do this in a debate, but doubly bad when you're the designated referee. I'm sure my note of it is in the circular file, as usual, but FWIW, I don't feel badly about calling you (or anyone else) on inappropriate behaviour.
I'd be a super-happy camper if we never had to have the conversation again.
"But this is not cultural, it is societal, patriarchal. It's not unique to any particular culture. I'm surprised so many are falling for the propoganda of the MSM. Do we get these in depth, salacious details when Canadian men do it? No, in that case they try to invoke other psychological factors rather than Canadian, cultural, patriarchal values.
If it's not UNIQUE, how can it be cultural? Don't buy the meme, then you get the disease and spread it. This is straightforward VAW (Violence against Women). And we all know it well."
You could well be right, Rev. I was thinking of that because I come from a community where violence against women is not tollerated by police. A complaint, a bruise and it's off to court for the abuser. There are exceptions of course, but that's been my experience, here. I was projecting that to other communities, discounting it, and maybe that's not valid.