CFS ignored abuse by her foster father, woman claims in suit

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This article was published 11/04/2017 (3129 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A former foster child is suing Child and Family Services (CFS), arguing the agency didn’t protect her from years of abuse she suffered at the hands of her foster father.

The now 29-year-old woman was taken into foster care at age 13, according to a statement of claim she filed April 4 in the Court of Queen’s Bench.

She says her foster father sexually abused her from the time she was 13 years old until she had turned 16, and that CFS knew but didn’t report the abuse.

The statement of claim, which has not been proven in court, seeks damages from the woman’s former foster parents, as well as the provincial government, Portage la Prairie-based Child and Family Services of Central Manitoba and employees who were assigned to the case.

The woman says her foster father repeatedly sexually assaulted her, brainwashed her, exploited her and “enslaved her as his sexual object,” from 2001 to 2003.

During that time, she says, a CFS employee interviewed her about the abuse only once.

CFS neither reported the abuse to the police nor removed her from the foster father’s care in a timely manner, she alleges.

She was transferred out of home at the request of the man’s wife in September 2001, but she claims the man would still visit her and give her phone cards to call him — and so the abuse continued.

In October 2002, the CFS agency sent a letter to the girl’s former foster father, acknowledging they were aware he had been having sex with her, according to the statement of claim.

The agency threatened him with charges under the Child and Family Services Act and penalties of a $500 fine, three months in jail or both.

The woman says her foster father continued to abuse her until September 2003.

She says CFS failed her by authorizing the man as a caregiver even though he was a “sexual predator and a pedophile,” and didn’t properly investigate the foster parents before placing her in their care.

She argues they were “reckless, careless and negligent” because they didn’t properly monitor her care, didn’t keep her safe, didn’t ensure contact between her and her former foster father ceased, didn’t offer her counselling and didn’t file a criminal complaint with police or a critical incident report.

She is asking the court to award her an unspecified dollar amount in damages for “the high-handed disregard of (her) psychological, emotional and physical health and safety, and blindness to protect her upon becoming suspicious, and of acquiring the requisite knowledge that (her foster father) was engaged in a sexual relationship with (her), a child in care,” the statement of claim says.

No statements of defence have been filed.

The woman says the abuse has left her with physical and psychological trauma, including depression and anxiety, conditions for which she now needs therapy.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @thatkatiemay