DPJ and domestic violence: a family “damaged by the system”

“Free Ahmed*! Free Ahmed! ” chanted a group of demonstrators in front of the CHSLD in Manoir-de-l'Âge-d'Or, in Montreal, every Saturday since the start of the year. Just 20 years old, Ahmed was placed in CHSLD under the guardianship of an adult two years ago. His mother having died, it was his grandmother Warda* who fought for her freedom.

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On Wednesday, January 17, 2024, Warda got out of her friend's car in front of the CHSLD in Manoir-de-l'Âge-d'Or, in downtown Montreal. In her hands, she is holding brown paper bags filled with food for her grandson Ahmed.

“After the death of my daughter, I asked Rivière-des-Prairies Hospital, already knowing Ahmed and his situation, to support him in his mourning. One week before he reached the age of majority, the Department of Youth Protection (DPJ) removed Ahmed from the hospital, despite the opposition of the psychiatrist who has been following him for years. Then they put it here,” she said.

She is used to running the establishment. She has been coming there four times a week for over a year. In the elevator, she explains: “I spent three months looking for my grandson. When they placed it, no one notified me. I had to ask for the help of Deputy Pierre Arcand and his team to find him. Overnight, I found myself excluded from my grandson's life. Imagine, right after the loss of my daughter, my grandson was taken away from me without notice! ”

After a familiar journey through the establishment, she reached Ahmed's room. The 20-year-old is hidden under a white cover. “Ahmed, Ahmed! Grandma is here, announces Warda as she approaches the bed. Grandma brought you some chicken, Ahmed. Grandma loves you! ” Ahmed does not answer, but shows his face, where you can see a small mustache and an emerging beard. He gets on his knees, and touches the door handle frequently, while bringing his hand back to his upper lip.

In the common room, Ahmed seems upset. He refuses to sit down, eats and then spits his bite back into the food bag. He breaks the wooden spoon and goes back to his corner. An employee is always next to him, ready to step in. Ahmed does not say sentences, just “yes, yes, yes”, “no, no, no” and “after, after, after”.

Once able to express his love for his grandmother, he is now restricted in his movements. “His life has turned for the worst since the intervention of the DPJ. Here he is considered violent. He can't even move without a person watching his every move. They keep him locked up here, he doesn't go out,” the grandmother explains sadly.

“My daughter would be torn apart if she saw all her fight doomed here; she gave her life for her son. If he stays here, it's as if his life has no meaning.”

Amina*, Ahmed's mother, died at the age of 52 from cancer in 2021. Warda believes that the stress and injustice she experienced have worsened her physical condition. “It's a feminicide that never shows up in the statistics,” she says.

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Amina's Long Purgatory

A week later. Warda, sitting in her apartment near Sainte-Justine Hospital, contemplates a black and white photo of her daughter before she arrived in Canada. Words fail her, a tear is streaming down her cheek. “Amina is my only child, she was my whole life,” she whispers.

Amina obtained an engineering degree in Algeria and then moved to Montreal in 1995 at the age of 22. Admitted to Polytechnique to do a master's degree, she chose to stay in Montreal, where Warda joined her two years later. “She had friends everywhere, organized “couscous parties” to share our Algerian culture.”

In 2003, Amina married and gave birth to her only child, Ahmed, a year later. The couple fought back and forth In 2006, the Superior Court of Quebec granted parents joint custody. Taking into account their respective incomes, 80% of the expenses related to Ahmed are attributed to the father. Disagreements are accumulating, Amina asks the Center for Preventive Services for Children (CSPE) for the pediatric follow-up of Ahmed due to language delay, while the father has his son evaluated for a pervasive developmental disorder (PDD).

In 2008, the DPJ gave custody to the father, citing a possible autism spectrum disorder that the mother did not accept, according to their standards. Amina is now only allowed to visit on weekends. In 2009, the DPJ criticized Amina for parental alienation, i.e. actions aimed at developing in the child disaffection with the other parent. The result: the time she can spend with Ahmed is considerably cut off, up to several months' absence of contact, and all this culminates in the withdrawal of her parental attributes. During all these years, Ahmed sometimes lives with his father, sometimes with foster families, and was hospitalized from 2014 to 2017.

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A reversal of perspective

In 2012, after a request for an investigation by Amina, the Special Commission on Children's Rights and Youth Protection (CSDEPJ) compiled observations from 2008 to 2012. This compilation reveals that beginning in 2009, worrying notes appeared in Ahmed's school file. At the age of five, he regularly called for his mother. He has marks on his face and mentions domestic violence by his father, saying he was tied up and locked up. Amina, the mother, is afraid to report the father for fear of reprisals against her child.

The school's concerns were brought to the attention of the DPJ as early as March 2009, but that is when the father accuses Amina of parental alienation.

In her progress report, Manon Lefebvre, a social worker at the Centre de Santé et de Services Sociaux de la Montagne, highlights Ahmed's growing distress at school between January and November 2009. When she interviews the DPJ, the interveners cite the mother's parental alienation as an explanation.

As early as November 2009, Manon Lefebvre and her colleagues called for a review of the intervention strategy for Ahmed, stressing his urgent need for reconciliation with his mother. They criticize the DPJ for its decisions that favour the father, and thereby accentuate family conflicts. The social worker writes that she “witnessed interventions and emails from the DPJ that were disrespectful to [Amina], even going so far as to be threatening. According to [school workers], she is a victim of institutional violence, and the child suffers the consequences of this violence, including anxiety and insecurity.”

In 2014, a change in personnel at the DPJ led to a change in perspective. Amina is regaining visitation rights and is now seen as the “key to success” for Ahmed's well-being. After nine years of litigation, in 2017, thanks to the intervention of Prime Minister Philippe Couillard's office, Ahmed returned to the maternal home. The child is then 14 years old. His behavioral problems became very severe.

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“Violence between the lines”

For Warda, Amina was a victim of a form of domestic violence: “My daughter experienced emotional abuse [through her son]. It's violence between the lines.”

In testimony given to the Committee of Experts on Support for Victims of Sexual Assaults and Domestic Violence, a year before her death, Amina described her story as a “sordid case of marked violence against women and children.” In it, she spoke of the use of violence by the father against the child in his care to “engender a paralyzing feeling of horror, supported by a sense of moral superiority and an attitude of contempt.”

She wrote that “the Department of Youth Protection, a certain nucleus that works out of all control, has knowingly nurtured and maintained this insidious violence that got the better of my son, giving full leeway to the father to deal more effectively. [It is] an organized form of abuse involving the vital dimension of our emotional lives, my child and me, resulting in psycho-traumatic effects for which Ahmed paid the price. I fear the worst is to come for my child and myself, the harm is immense and disproportionate.”

Recalling the past, Warda places her hand over her mouth, talking to her daughter. “Ma Ghbina**, what did they do with you? she said softly as she caressed the photograph. “They destroyed my daughter, they stole her life. Because of this whole affair, she has not set foot in Algeria since 2000. She was a prisoner here, she couldn't even attend her own father's funeral.”

Julie Desrosiers and Elizabeth Corte, the co-chairs of this Committee, responded as follows: “The testimony you gave us shows that the justice process can sometimes be a long and difficult process and that domestic violence is still poorly understood.”

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“A child damaged by the system”

Marie-Agnès Lebreton, former director of the Center for Preventive Services for Children (CSPE), has witnessed the long process. When she mentions the subject, she let out a sigh: “In my entire career, I have never witnessed a story so dramatic, so unfair.”

She questions parental alienation as a justification for DPJ, stressing that “a mother's ordinary actions were interpreted maliciously.” She deplores the loss of the mother-son bond, which went against the observations of several professionals. “Ahmed was not offered the best opportunities in this situation. He is a child who has been damaged by the system. There was a slippage. The DPJ stuck to its positions, as if it didn't want to lose face.” According to the former director, each decision was a show of control, creating a profound conflict with the mother.

Marie-Agnès Lebreton deplores the slow pace of questioning, which occurred in 2014-2015. “Amina, who has three degrees, saw her life hampered. She could not even work anymore, leaving her health behind in this war imposed by the DPJ, which refused to reconcile visiting hours with her job. When I saw Ahmed again, at the age of 13, after the DPJ finally gave him back to Amina, he was in a disastrous condition. I was wondering: how did the DYP really help this child? Mistakes are human, but for Ahmed, it was the persistence to be right that ruined everything. The lives of Amina, Ahmed and Warda were on the line, victims of a conflict fuelled by ego,” she concludes today.

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“David versus Goliath”

Warda, Manon Lefebvre and Marie-Agnès Lebreton do not comment on an isolated case. The Special Commission on Children's Rights and Youth Protection (CSDEPJ) collected numerous testimonies in their report entitled Your story. Parents have denounced the “abuse of power” by the DPJ, highlighting criticisms of its neutrality and impartiality, and expressing persistent concerns about the lack of checks and balances to question the decisions of its stakeholders.

These parents believe that existing complaint mechanisms, such as complaint commissioners, the Québec Ombudsman and the Human Rights Commission, remain ineffective, that they protect each other instead of putting the child at the heart of decisions. They evoke a fight between “David and Goliath”. Mothers, victims of domestic violence, criticize DPJ workers for their inadequate treatment, deploring decisions that favor aggressors. This is the case, for example, when the DPJ imposes, in mediation, collaboration with violent fathers and thus worsens post-separation tensions.

The Committee of Experts on Support for Victims of Sexual Assaults and Domestic Violence submitted its report entitled Rebuilding trust in December 2020. In it, he concludes that, in a context where domestic violence is minimized, parents who express fears are often labeled as “alienating.” Measures to protect children can be misinterpreted, invalidating victims' fears and strengthening relationships with the abusive parent.

In 2022, the Youth Protection Act (YPJ) established that exposure to post-separation violence undermines children's well-being. Despite the changes made in April 2023, mothers still face charges of parental alienation, resulting in the withdrawal of their children. In January 2024, more than 250 organizations supported the National Association of Women and the Law's campaign to ban these accusations.

On January 29, 2024, in an interview granted to Journal de Montréal, the minister responsible for social services, Lionel Carmant, said he was reticent about the concept of parental alienation.

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“Free Ahmed! ”

On January 20, in an intense cold, about twenty people gathered in front of the Manoir-de-l'Âge-d'Or to support Ahmed's grandmother. They are chanting slogans such as “Give Ahmed his life back! and “Free Ahmed!” ” Hadjira, president of the Quebec Muslim Grave Association, expresses her commitment, fuelled by her knowledge of Amina's trials and Ahmed's suffering. “We continue to support Warda, because her daughter lost her health and her life in these violent instances [the DPJ and now the guardianship]. Since the death of her daughter, Warda has been plunged into a litigation system similar to that of her daughter.”

Hadjira points out that in her opinion, this is a clear case of systemic racism. “Their Arab and Muslim identity stigmatizes them, presenting them as retrograde individuals, unable to determine what is best for their children,” she believes.

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For his part, Othman discovered the story of Ahmed and Amina online. He had rubbed shoulders with them. in his gym. He remembers Ahmed thriving with his mother and sees the change since the separation: “He is all alone. There are no really stimulating activities, not even daily walks. I think it is scandalous that such a young life should have to go through this.”

The CHSLD replies that it offers various services to several categories of clients, including seniors, people with mental health problems or intellectual disabilities (ID), or those with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). These programs are organized independently in separate units, which avoids contact between clients. The institution specifies that ID and ASD clients usually stay in its facilities for a short time, and that it thus serves as a transitional unit before being transferred to a place offering long-term care and services. In addition, the CHSLD affirms that “the user you are referring to benefits, like all our users and residents, from the best services of our qualified and professional teams”.

But Ahmed has just turned 20, and the demonstrators outside the Manoir de l'Âge-d'Or want to “save him from a system that neglects his real well-being.” They demand “an investigation and a reassessment of his case, taking into account the professionals who assisted Amina and Warda”.

And at 74, Warda wants to devote the remaining time to helping her grandson and honoring the memory of her daughter, without having yet had time to grieve.

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* As the person in question is under the supervision of the Public Trustee, we followed the instructions of the curatorship and did not disclose her identity or that of the members of her family (mother and grandmother).

** Grief caused by an injustice.

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