The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal has awarded an Indigenous mother who lost access to all four of her children $150,000 in an 'unprecedented' decision against Canada's longest-serving Aboriginal child care agency.
The Vancouver Aboriginal Child and Family Services Society was found to have based decisions about a woman's right to custody on 'stereotypes about her as an Indigenous mother with mental health issues.'
The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal says the complaint was 'unprecedented.' The award is the second-highest in the tribunal's history. The teenager later retracted the allegation, but the resulting investigation led to the children being removed from her care and placed into foster homes. She was banned from the agency's office and lost access to her children altogether for six months in 2018, during which time she became homeless, police became involved, and RR took her case to the courts.
Cousineau says the case highlights the impacts of colonialization on the child welfare system and "the profound power imbalance between caregivers, on the one hand, and the many people and professionals empowered to make or influence decisions about their children, on the other." "VACFSS relied on stereotypical assumptions to view RR's trauma, substance use, conflict with the child welfare system, and the intergenerational impacts of residential school, as risk factors for the children," the ruling says.
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