Canada denies asylum to Zim woman fleeing Muslim hubby

Canada denies asylum to Zim woman fleeing Muslim hubby

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By Ian MacLeod
29/03/04
CANADA has denied refugee protection to an abused woman from Zimbabwe, yet has granted refugee status to her children, a move that will see the single mother deported and, she says, forced to abandon her three young children.

A copy of the March 11 federal refugee board decision sits on the living room table in the woman's small Ottawa apartment where she and her children live on social assistance. Her pleasant, round face is drenched with tears as she recounts her marriage to a Zimbabwean man who, after the wedding, enacted strict Islamic code in their household and demonized her western lifestyle.

It was the beginning of what she says turned into years of physical and sexual abuse and death threats as well as emotional abuse against their children. When she called police, she was repeatedly told domestic abuse is not a police matter in Zimbabwe.

After securing a divorce and fearing for her life, she packed some suitcases and fled with her children to Canada, "the last place he would think of looking for me."

She arrived with $1,200 U.S. and the phone number of a Canadian family she did not know, but who agreed to shelter her and the children in the basement of their home until she could get refugee protection.

Because of the apparent danger they face, the Citizen has agreed not to reveal the names of the woman and her children and, where possible, other details that might reveal their identities. For the same reason, the newspaper has not contacted her ex-husband for comment.

The refugee board's decision landed in her mailbox this week. Two of her children, both under the age of 12, are citizens of Zimbabwe and the board found there was sufficient evidence to grant them protection from having to return there. (Her third child, an eight-month-old boy, was born in Canada by another father.)

Yet based on the same evidence, the refugee board rejected the woman's claim because she is a citizen of Britain. She was born outside of Zimbabwe and never had full citizenship there.

Under Canada's refugee law, she can only be considered for refugee status if she can establish that there is a reasonable chance she would be in danger in Britain. But the board ruled Britain, which has extensive initiatives to combat domestic abuse, is capable of protecting her and that she is therefore not in need of protection from Canada.

"In refugee law, that's a very difficult decision to overturn," says Geraldine MacDonald, the woman's Toronto lawyer.

But the woman says her ex-husband has relatives and other contacts in Britain and she believes he will eventually find her. And because he repeatedly failed to abide by an earlier protection order issued against him in Zimbabwe, she has no reason to believe he'll respect British law.

"That would be the first place that he would look for me. A protection order didn't stop him before, it's not going to stop him now. If he wants me dead, he's going to kill me.

"If I have to, I'm going to try to find a legal guardian for the children because the whole purpose for coming here was that he wouldn't be able to get them. If I take them to the U.K. and he kills me, he gets the children. It's better for them to stay here."

She now wonders whether she should have hidden in Canada illegally.

"I've done everything to be honest and above board and feel that it's been to my detriment. There are a lot of people who come here (and) tear up their documentation, they pretended to be who they're not, and they're allowed to stay because people can't prove that they're not who they claim they are.

"I could have torn up my British passport and said that I was not British. I could have done so many things and I didn't."

Even Richard Dawson, the refugee board member who decided the case, seems sympathetic to the woman's plight, the facts of which he accepted without reservation.

"The panel must point out that it feels a great deal of concern for her obvious emotional suffering and would hope that she is seeking appropriate treatment to aid in her healing," Mr. Dawson wrote in his decision. (The woman and her children have had intensive counselling. All three have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.)

Ms. MacDonald says a notice was to be filed with the Federal Court of Canada yesterday requesting leave for a judicial review of the board's decision. But given the woman's U.K. citizenship, it seems unlikely the Federal Court will be swayed.

The notice will, however, buy the woman approximately 30 days before the deportation order becomes enforceable. After that, and if no further appeal actions are launched, she will have 30 days to leave Canada.

The woman's best hope, says Ms. MacDonald, is that she starts a separate action seeking to stay in Canada on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.

But because the woman is on social assistance and legal aid will very likely not cover the costs of a full appeal or humanitarian plea, she has turned

to the Citizen to publicize her story. Her hope is that people will donate money to a trust fund that a local church is planning to established for her.

It is estimated that she would need about $2,700 to launch an action to stay on humanitarian grounds. A Federal Court appeal would cost about $2,000 more.

"I have to find money to stay," she says. "Maybe even a lawyer will say, 'I'll do it for free.'"

She has explained the situation to her oldest children.

"I've been very forward and very up front with them because I feel that they need to know. I don't want to drop a bombshell on them next week and say 'I have to go' and they're not aware of what's going on.

"My eldest is devastated and brought all the pocket money that I gave them and said 'Mommy, take it back," to pay for an appeal.

She and her ex-husband met in their 20s. She was Christian, he was Muslim. "He was very, very friendly. He wasn't ever overly loving, but he was a nice person."

After dating for about two years, they married in a traditional Muslim ceremony.

Three days later, "he started wearing a long traditional dress and headdress and started growing out his beard. His family came in and took everything that was westernized, including my clothing, and I was wearing the full covering of hijab.

"It was a very big surprise. There was this completely different person that I didn't know. I knew Islamic fundamentalism existed in the community but I didn't know that he was part of that."

Her husband soon joined a militant Islamic religious group.

"He started going away for religious purposes. When he'd come back he'd just be so aggressive and so angry. There was so much hatred, especially for the Jews. (He said) I support the Taliban, I'm going to go away and join them, all kinds of stuff like this."

The physical abuse started after she became pregnant with their first child.

"If his dinner wasn't ready on time, he'd beat me up. If I didn't say my prayers, he'd beat me up."

In a 14,000-word statement she filed with the refugee board, she chronicles her nightmare of steadily escalating violence, including sexual torture, and how her husband pushed her down some stairs when he learned she was pregnant again. She miscarried.

He later threaten to take the children if she left him "and I really believed that. In Zimbabwe, there is not a lot of support for abused women."

Finally, after he tried to strangle her one night -- one of her children stopped the attack by repeatedly kicking him -- she sought a divorce, which was granted several months later. She eventually moved into the home of friends. She also won custody of the children and had a protection order issued against him, to no avail.

"I know he had to pay fines for violating the protection

order, but it was maybe a $50 fine and then he was let loose straight away. Often times, he'd be right back at my house after an hour, an hour and a half. It was constant."

She says he twice abducted the children from their school. With the help of police, they were soon located, physically unharmed, in the homes of his relatives and friends.

After the second abduction, in front of police officers, "he said that the world was too small for the two of us to be living in and he was going to kill me and take his children back. And the police just stood there and did nothing. I decided then that I had to leave."

Saying she was going on a short holiday with the children to a nearby country, he gave his written permission that the children could be taken out of Zimbabwe. Instead, she headed for Canada.

"It's a very good place to hide."

On one of the flights here, she met an African couple who gave the name of a Ugandan refugee who had settled in Canada. Two days later, she arrived at Toronto's Pearson airport, presented her British passport and the travel note signed by the father, and told a customs officer she and her children were on a holiday.

She then called her Ugandan contact, explained her situation, and was soon living in the basement of his family's home.

"I just stayed in hiding there, I was too scared to go out for fear that somebody would see me and recognize me."

Two months later, she filed refugee claims for herself and the children, who were soon accepted into a Canadian school. The family moved to Ottawa last April.

Her lawyer, Ms. MacDonald, says the refugee board's decision to grant the children protection in Canada serves as a possible foundation for their mother to seek permission to stay based on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.

Mr. Dawson, the refugee board member who made the ruling, "was very sympathetic and was, I think, as far as he could, trying to help her. Perhaps this is the kind of case that Canada can assist somebody like this, where the family would be separated. This is a type of situation for humanitarian and compassionate relief."
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