Help a German Family after a horrible time to stay in Canada

Dear Immigration Government of Canada:

We are a German Family (Elena 27, Martin 48) with two girls, Clarissa 9 and Fabienne 6. We came to Canada in June 2013 as visitors. Our main reason was not to visit Canada but to find refuse in Canada, a place that we know has a fair justice system and where families can raise their children in a peaceful environment.

Germany is not known to be a country where you flee from but our family does not feel safe in Germany and this is why we are writing to you, we want to share our story and ask for permanent residence in your country.

It was the 19th of September 2012 in a city in Germany called Regensburg. On this day, we took our girls to Kindergarten and School like every day. Around 2 pm my husband got a phone call from the Youth Welfare Department and they told him that they had taken our kids away claiming that they wouldn’t be safe with us. After this shocking phone call, my husband rushed to my workplace at around 2:30 pm, and with tears in his eyes he told me the horrific phone call that he got. I was shocked. We immediately drove to the Youth Welfare office.

When we arrived there, nobody wanted to speak with us. Desperately, we went to the office of a higher official. We were able to reach him and so we asked him why they had taken our kids away and where they were but he said he couldn’t give us that information and he threaten us saying he would call the police if we didn’t leave. It was so heartbreaking for us because we didn't even know where and how are girls were.

Three days later the woman responsible for taking our kids called us to tell us that, if we wanted we can come to talk with her. It had been three days of no answers and anguish that we didn’t hesitate and went to see her right away. When we arrived at her office, she gave us a letter and we began to read. What we read was unbelievable. The letter claimed that we sexually abused our kids and did a lot of other horrible things. We couldn’t believe it. We didn’t know where they had gotten all those lies from. We told them that nothing in the letter was true but she didn’t seem to care, she was just smiling. We cried asking her where our kids were and we asked her for a phone number where we could reach them. She said that they were about 200 km away from our home.

We insisted several times, asking her where our girls were and we wanted a phone number desperately, until finally she gave it to us. After meeting with her we drove to our lawyer and gave her all the documents we got from the welfare department. She read it and the one thing she advised us was that we shouldn't sign anything without her approval since the welfare department had planned to call us in a few days to sign several papers. We had no contact the first three weeks with our daughters; we didn't even know how they were. NOTHING! My husband and I cried the whole time without answers, wondering how they could have made up lies to take our girls away. All of our friends and family were shocked; they knew that we would never do what the letter claimed we did to our daughters.

One day, looking for ways to get our daughters back, my husband and I had an idea to proof to the Youth Welfare Department that our daughters were okay with us and that nothing had happened to them physically. We went to our daughters’ doctor’s office and we told him what had happened. He, like everyone else, was shocked. He said that he couldn’t believe someone could think we would do something like that. He knew our daughters and did regular checks on them and had never seen bruises or any hint of sexual abuse. He wrote a letter testifying on our behalf, stating that he had known our daughters for a while, that he had been their doctor for years and he never saw anything abnormal. The same information was validated by two other doctors, 28 other people like family, friends and neighbors. Nonetheless, the welfare Department said our letters weren’t valid and outrageously enough, the court said that the same thing.

When the Welfare Department decided to let us speak with our daughters, they wanted us to lie to our kids the first day we would have contact. They wanted us to tell them that they were on vacation and not in foster care. We didn’t agree. As soon as we talked with our kids we told them the truth and they started to cry and scream. They wanted to go home to mommy and daddy. Since then, we recorded all the phone calls with everybody who was involved in our case and we still have all of the recordings. We tried for nine long months to proof our innocence. At the third and last court day we finally had success. After the our daughters had spent months in horror away from their parents, the court finally decided that we would get our girls back with all the parental rights and all that belonged to our family.

After the judge made the last statement, the lady from the Welfare Department came to us and told us that she would come back again and take our kids and that this next time we would never see them again. She smiled with such sarcasm and shook my husband’s hand. She tried the same with me but I could not take her mockery and I turned around without shaking her hand. How could I? She was the one who stole our daughters and lied for nine months. She took away the children of a regular family, a family who had everything: their own house, an apartment, work and a great family life.

We got our daughters back on the 17th of May 2013 and that’s when decided to leave Germany. We left on June 28th of 2013. We left everything back in Germany; family, friends, work, and house, everything to live in peace and help our daughters move on from the fear that this bitter experience left.

However, it has not been easy. After two months of being here in Canada, my daughters began to open up about what they had lived in the foster home they were placed at. Fabienne, my youngest daughter came one day to me and said, “mommy can I talk with you about all of what happened? “ I agreed and she began to tell me things a mother or father would never want to hear. She told me that the foster care wanted her older sister to do sexual things with another boy while the adult was watching them. She said Clarissa needed to put “the boy’s thing” in her mouth. I asked my daughter Clarissa if she wanted to talk about it with me but she ran away and didn't want to talk because she was ashamed. I told her she could come anytime, when she was ready to talk to me or daddy about that. A few weeks later she asked me if she could talk to me so long as she could stay with us and not send her away for this. Of course, I agreed and she told me the same thing my younger daughter had told me. She said she was forced to do sexual things with a boy while the adults watched them. She also told me that they got kicked and were forced to stay outside in the wintertime (-15 C). Whenever they would say they didn’t like something, for example spinach, they would swear at them calling them asshole and bastard. They would also yell at Fabienne because she began to pee in her bed from the fear. As a consequence they made my five year old daughter wash her clothes by hand saying that she needed to learn not to pee in her bed or clothes. Clarissa and Fabienne were not allowed to turn the heater in their room on because it costs money and so their room became colder than the temperature outside.

Being in Canada our daughters have found some form of peace and rest because they know those people are far away; but the fear is still present. They still get scared if someone knocks on the door and they don't know who. They hide every time they hear the door because they don’t want anybody to come and take them away again. Every week that passes, they feel with more liberty to share their experience and I listen, but deep down it kills me to hear and know what my babies went through.

They stole nine months of our lives, they scarred a normal family for life and nobody can give us those nine months back, nobody will be able to erase the terror and abuse they let my daughters go through.

We love our girls with all of our heart and they love mommy and daddy too. We don’t want to go back to Germany and live in fear. My husband and I want the best for our daughters and being in Canada has brought more emotional and mental stability than we could ever hope for after the abuse we went through in our country.

I beg you; please help our family to stay here in Canada. Help us live without fear and live a normal family life together with our kids. We want the best for our daughters, and this is why we are here. We have all the court papers and all the recordings with us here in Canada for your reference.

Thank you so very much for the attention you give to this desperate call for help.

We also made a video on Youtube/Twitter/Facebook: --->
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hvgad5mLsY <---

Sincerely,

Clarissa, Fabienne, Martin and Elena Schuster