B.C. Afro-Indigenous mom awarded $151K in child welfare case

The BC Human Rights Tribunal has awarded an Afro-Indigenous mother $150,000 after it found a Vancouver child welfare agency discriminated against her on the basis of her race and disability.

The case dates back to 2016, when the woman, identified by the tribunal only as RR, lost custody of her four kids. Her lawyer says the Vancouver Aboriginal Child and Family Services Society (VACFSS) retained custody and restricted RR’s access to her children for three years.

According to the tribunal, the society’s decisions were informed by stereotypes.

“I think we are very hopeful that the decision will highlight how deeply entrenched and historically rooted these issues are of oppression, I don’t think that’s too strong a word, of what Indigenous families face in the current child welfare system,” explained Aleem Bharmal, who represented RR.

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The 151-page decision details how RR’s children were kept from her under what it referred to as a colonial “command and control” structure, with her kids placed in foster care environments.

“I think one thing that came out very strongly in the case was how starkly differentially she was treated in terms of the serious harm her children were coming to in foster care compared to the agency being very critical of very minor things when the children were in her care,” Bharmal, who works for the BC Human Rights Clinic operated by the Community Legal Assistance Society, explained, adding the society hired third-party supervisors to watch RR as she cared for her kids.

“She’d get criticized, for example, taking the children grocery shopping, saying ‘well that’s not child-centred enough,’ and accused of just taking her time to take her children on errands. In the meantime, one of her daughters, eight years old, attempted suicide in foster care. Another was seriously abused by care workers. She was seriously bruised around her ankles and her wrists, and the mother had to report this to the police and was not informed of this serious abuse of her children.”

Despite the agency being Indigenous-led, he says its actions were still rooted in colonial bias.

“I hope this case, with this particular agency and with others, will be more attuned to these issues and even more aware, and try not to fall into these traps of bias and or stereotyping their clients,” Bharmal told CityNews.

The tribunal says the human rights complaint that was brought forward was “unprecedented” and exposed systemic forces of discrimination, finding that warrants the highest amount of human rights damages.

The VACFSS maintained throughout the case that its actions were undertaken to protect the kids.

The society tells CityNews it will provide a statement on the decision Thursday.