N.S. Court Says It Cannot Intervene in Case of Teen Syrian Refugee Allegedly Beaten by Her Father

A Nova Scotia court ruled it cannot intervene in the child protection case of a teenage Syrian refugee whose father allegedly beat her, breaking her nose, when he learned she had been texting a boy.

The family came to Canada in 2016 under a refugee resettlement program.

Last November, police were called after the father allegedly punched his daughter five times and hit her with a belt between 30 and 50 times.

“I understand from the affidavits filed that (the girl) received a text message from a boy,” Justice Michelle K. Christenson writes in a Nova Scotia Supreme Court ruling released this week that prohibits publication of the family’s names.

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The father was charged with assault and assault with a weapon, and was released on conditions that included he not contact his daughter. (The father had previously been convicted of assaulting his wife following a 2017 incident in which she jumped from a second-storey window.)

Following the 2021 attack, Nova Scotia Minister of Community Services Karla MacFarlane filed for a protective intervention for the child.

But it later emerged that the child may have been age 16 at the time of the attack, and therefore outside of the family court’s jurisdiction under the Children and Family Services Act.

When the question of the girl’s age was raised, the minister successfully sought a delay to obtain documentation that proved the child was born in 2007.

But instead, at the time of the hearing, “much to my surprise, the minister filed three affidavits and a brief, all of which argued this Court lacked jurisdiction because they believed the child was born in 2005,” writes Judge Christenson.

Both parents supported the minister’s argument that the child was born in 2005, making her 16 at the time of the attack.

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Paperwork from the refugee program submitted to the government of Canada showed the girl’s birth year was 2007, making her 14 at the time of the attack, said a representative for the child. But no official copies of this documentation were provided to the court.

The girl’s representative also provided the court with a photocopy of the child’s Syrian passport, but Christenson said that isn’t enough, “I can not act on a photocopy attached to a brief.”

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