SEIZING CHILDREN

Each year in each of our provinces in Canada, police officers and child-welfare caseworkers remove children of all ages from the custody of their parents to protect them from alleged abuse or neglect. Some of these “emergency removals” are pre-authorized by judges in ex parte proceedings until the full story is known. In other cases the removals are achieved solely on the authority of the law enforcement or child welfare agency responding to a concerned call they have received. Depending on ages of children and circumstances, the children are predictably seized without warning from their homes or schools, subjected to intrusive interrogations, medical examinations and occasionally strip-searched. They are required to live in foster homes or group homes while the legal system grinds toward a settlement of their future.