Posted on 09/09/2004 5:48:13 AM PDT by Loyalist
Customs, schooling, food become issues for Muslim children put in Christian home
The controversy surrounding four Muslim children placed in a Christian foster home in St. Catharines, Ont., has exposed a child-welfare system in culture shock.
When Family and Children's Services of Niagara plucked the children from their parents last November and placed the four in a foster home with little knowledge of their religious and cultural practices, an outraged local Muslim community condemned the agency for its cultural insensitivity and even staged a vigil outside its offices in protest.
But the children's aid society had only one Muslim foster home on its roster, and that family was unwilling to open its door to the four children, who range in age from 2 to 10.
The children landed in a Christian foster home over the loud objections of the Egyptian-born parents, who are seeking refugee status. They claim their children have eaten pork, been exposed to alcohol consumption and witnessed kissing in the home, all religious and cultural taboos.
As the number of children entering foster care soars to record levels (it has risen 65 per cent in the past six years, to 19,105 as of last March), children's aid societies are plucking ever more young from the swelling tide of newcomers to Canada whose child-rearing practices sometimes clash with those of child-welfare agencies that frown on physical discipline of children.
While agencies in richly multicultural cities, such as Toronto and Hamilton, have launched recruiting drives for foster parents from ethnic minorities, most immigrant children in care are landing in homes foreign to their cultures.
"It has presented some new challenges for children's aid societies," said Jeanette Lewis, executive director with the Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies.
"It has meant the recruitment effort for finding foster homes with a huge diversity of cultural and racial difference is ever more of a problem," she said.
Ann Godfrey, a spokeswoman for the St. Catharines agency, said the foster parents are trying to raise the children as Muslims.
They have started shopping at specialty food stores, supervise their prayers, and escort them to the local mosque.
"They are placed in a home that's not Muslim, but the foster family -- I want to give them the credit they deserve with regard to accommodating the cultural needs of the kids -- have made a huge effort in terms of learning what is needed and providing those kinds of things for the children."
As of this week, social workers are ferrying the children back and forth to a private Muslim school in Hamilton, an hour's drive away from their foster home, in a Herculean bid to maintain cultural ties. The special effort is a sign of the times for child-welfare agencies grappling with growing numbers of immigrant children in care.
Said Ghabn of the Muslim Association of Hamilton described the children's parents as "depressed and confused."
The children's aid society is allowing the children to visit with the parents, and Ms. Godfrey said the ultimate plan is for the family to be reunited once social workers are convinced that the children will be safe.
Western countries are committing suicide by allowing these animals (yes, animals) to immigrate.
Well then why didn't the "Sensitive Ones" offer to take the children.
What's a few more beggers there matter?
Don't miss the nanny-state subtext. "Children's Aid" is after anyone who disciplines their children, irrespective of religion.
Let them be cared for by Chechen rebels.
They're pissed because the Christian homes aren't doing a good job of teaching them how to strap on a belt full of bombs.
Improper muslim upbringing, doncha know. It's all for the children!
I assume this is after they staged a vigil outside the muslim parent's home in protest of how they took care of their kids in the first place, right?
Then, the article is wrong. They must not be a Christian family.
Bingo. You called it. The real outrage here is that the Government would summarily confiscate children in the first place.
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