The Things That Keep Me Up At Night...

The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters

Los Caprichos, No. 43

Francisco Goya

I come from a family of people who struggle with sleep. One of my cousins once had a period of time where he slept only about an hour a day. I neither fall asleep easily, nor do I stay asleep easily. But sometimes I think it's more to do with some generalized anxiety thing than just some neurological weirdness. I've ardently resisted having a sleep study done, since the idea of falling asleep with electrodes all over my head and body, in a bed not my own, is just unpalatable, not least because of my back and neck problems. 

The stuff that keeps me up at night, these days, feels almost like I'm suffocating. There is of course, the biggest issue of all, that of my Mom, worrying about her, as I see her growing ever frailer by the week. She gets annoyed if I hover (defined as too many welfare checks and not enough appreciation for Fox News and the GOP) and annoyed/sad/lonely if I don't hover. I worry about her being in pain and not trusting that I'll keep her at home with nursing services if she tells me. I worry she is having more GI bleeding than she's willing to admit to, since she looks so pale. I worry she still insists on driving to her daily acupuncture appointment, though I've suggested getting her a driver. Today, we had a huge fight about her wanting to give a potted ground orchid to her beloved acupuncturist. That would be the same acupuncturist that told me she mustn't lift anything heavy because of the risk of hemorrhaging. And you know, I'm thinking fifty pounds of heavy Chinese-style glazed pot and rain-wet potting soil was probably the kind of thing her acupuncturist was thinking was heavy for a 5' 1" tall, 118 lb woman who's had a number of GI bleeds in recent months.  After a bitter discussion in which she tried every diversion tactic and misdirection ("Do I hear that you don't like my getting my primary treatment from an acupuncturist?" "No, Mom, you hear that I don't like it that you're ignoring her very sensible and clearly stated to you advice!" "I'm not lifting it. I'm going to roll it to the car and push it up an 8 foot long ramp to get it in the back of the car!" "All of which still uses ab muscles, last I heard. How about my husband I lift it together and carry it a good 15 feet to a car parked outside that gate and then take it to her house so she doesn't have to lift it either?" "Why do you have to try to micromanage me?!" Because I'm following your Chinese doctor's advice you wanted me to follow, remember?") we agreed that tomorrow she would ask her acupuncturist when she could bring it to her for her birthday. Of course, I went behind her back and talked to the acupuncturist in person, in her office, about my husband and I bringing the plant to her. I am sure now, after it's gotten thoroughly soaked in the rain, that she'll try to roll it to her car and take it tomorrow morning, because... that's just how oppositional she is. Let's hope she doesn't get any bleeds. My mom... Oy. She's the kind of person who worries that when she dies that someone will take the decades old appliances out of the house when she's gone, in spite of my pointing out anyone buying the house will likely gut it in order to make all those new-fangled updates people like in houses these days and that it might be more salient to think about who will take her kitties. Things I worry about are the placement for her three shy indoor cats, and her two outdoor kitties. (I already have 7 cats and her cats cannot join us. I already have one refugee from her household.) These are all reasonable things to worry about. Aren't they?

But... there's more. Of course, there's more.

My husband and I are headed toward retirement. We want to leave Florida, and there is another worry. Having become a professional guardian, I wonder what will happen to my wards when they transition to successor guardianship. And I struggle with what to do about one of my GAL kids, who plainly needs a guardianship, in about 15 months time. She is an incredibly behaviorally disturbed, low cognitive functioning youth who has almost been trafficked and who is prone to aggressive outbursts. Like, I'm sure if she does what she does now, at 18, I'll be explaining to a Criminal Court judge that she is incapacitated and doesn't bear responsibility for assaulting her school teachers and showing the judge my letters of guardianship. If my husband retires in 5 years, that will mean a scant 3-4 years of guardianship to get her circumstances in order well enough, and to find a successor guardian or guardian entity. And therein lies yet another problem. Our public guardian provider does not take these cases anymore. Who will take care of these still young, lifelong, low functioning, high needs wards? These disabled adult children, as the Social Security Administration calls them. I have known this soon to be 17 year old child since 2008. How can I turn my back on her, given her history? Do I give it a good 3-4 years and then hope I can find a new and caring professional guardian for her, as well?

These are the things that keep me up at night. Trying to sleep shouldn't breed monsters.

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Between a Rock and a Hard Place

A Rock and a Hard Place, attribution unknown

This brief post is about what it's like to be a case manager. It is a pastiche of actual comments from some of the truly wonderful case managers I've known. And I've known more good ones than bad ones.


"I feel horrible. I'm taking care of everybody else's neglected children and feel like I'm neglecting my own children."

"One day I came home from work, like usual, after 8 pm, and my daughter asked me why she never saw me anymore, why I never went to any of her extracurriculars. I had to quit doing case management. I couldn't bear it."

"So I do all this work, get a master's degree, hardly sleep, really care about each and every child in my case load, spend my own money buying them things my agency won't, and then this judge, who thinks that parents can do no wrong and practically own those kids, sends them home to get beaten with a belt? I have to get out of here. Maybe I can go into medical social work or something. I just can't stand this anymore."

"I missed his first words, his first steps, his first morning at pre-K. I can't miss any more."

"You're on your own out there. Your supervisor won't raise a finger to help and will only tell you what you did wrong. Your administrator's door is always closed. I'm up there facing a judge and there's nobody that has my back."

"At my agency they have all these layers. I'm supposed to have someone else do all the referrals for me. But if they don't get made or services don't get started, it's my fault, and you can bet I'm going to get blamed for it. But, if I do them myself, then I'm accused of not following their structure, and of being inefficient with my time. I just can't win."

"Overwhelmed? I was overwhelmed last year. This year, I'm almost drowned. I don't know where I can go. This is the third agency I tried. This system is broken, and while I want to try to keep these kids safe, no one's really helping me do it. Some judges give them right back and others don't want to even give their parents a chance. Staffing after staffing of what I'm supposed to be doing that I haven't done yet for this case or that. No money to do it with, all these insurance snags or limitations, no way to do anything nice for these kids, foster parents that you don't like, and program managers talking about money, money, money. I don't want to quit caring about these kids, but I have to get out of here, or I will. I am almost too tired to care about myself."

"I feel so terrible about leaving her case, because she has such abandonment issues. But my whole unit was reassigned. I just don't know why they do this. I'm so sorry. If I give you my personal cell number, you could call me with her, when you visit. I don't want her to feel like I just disappeared and forgot about her, like her family did."

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Simple Mistakes

I am still tasting bitter disgust from an article I read over the weekend. It was written by Mike Clary, a reporter I both respect, and whom, coincidentally, I used to live next to in Coral Gables. His article ran in the Sun-Sentinel and the Miami Herald over the weekend. Let me cut to the chase for you. I'm sure you'll see precisely where my problems began and where they are fixated still.

"Three months before the remains were found, DCF had received a report that Dontrell Melvin (see below) had long been missing. But no one at the time — not his parents, not police and not DCF — went looking for the infant, who disappeared when he was about 5 months old.

Sierra and Melvin have been jailed, charged with felony child neglect. Though Dontrell's death was ruled a killing, no homicide-related charges have been filed in the case.

Both Miles (Dennis Miles, DCF's southeast regional managing director) and Benitez (Emilio Benitez, CEO of ChildNet, the private agency contracted by the state's Department of Children and Families to oversee foster care in Broward and Palm Beach counties) said a high-profile case, such as Dontrell's, may influence investigators' decisions on removals.

'They see that from a simple mistake they may get prosecuted," Benitez said. "That sends a chill down your spine. It sends a chill across the whole system."

"They see that from a simple mistake they may get prosecuted," Benitez said. "That sends a chill down your spine. It sends a chill across the whole system."

Child-abuse investigators are required to remove a child from a home when the child is in imminent danger. The case is then to go before a dependency court judge for a shelter hearing within 24 hours."

Dontrell Melvin

This is Dontrell Melvin. I don't know about you, but to me he doesn't look like the victim of a simple mistake. 

He looks like a CHILD. One who is now forever gone from this earth.

This child was murdered by his parents, who were supposedly investigated by the Department of Children and Families. He is one of six children I know of who have suffered the same fate in my state thus far this year. You can read about them, in brief, in various Florida news outlets: Ezra Raphael, Antwan Hope, Fernando Barahona, Bryan Osceola, Dontrell Melvin and Emma Morrison. A few days before Mike's article ran, the Miami Herald ran an OpEd aptly titled "DCF Fails Vulnerable Children." 

You can see how "affecting" to some child welfare sector management the public outcry has been when you hear tone-deaf responses like that of  Mr. Benitez, CEO of ChildNet, an organization managing child welfare case management services in not one but two counties. Failure to remove this child was "a simple mistake," and that, oh, boohoo, child protective investigators have been "chilled" by the fact that they'll get at a minimum a lot of notoriety, and a at a maximum, charged if the children they investigate are further harmed and/or killed.

I'll tell you what's chilling and it has nothing to do to with whether PIs are removing more children because they're afraid if they don't that they'll be.... oooooooh! cue the Twilight Zone theme.... in the public eye.

I've said it before and I won't quit saying it:

Where is the WELFARE in my state?

We need an army of Mike Clarys and Carol Marbin Millers in my state and we need to give them megaphones and a large bandwidth to make the stories of these children heard and most of all, to prevent similar stories. We need a rising tide of outrage to crest in change. It should be chilling that any child is unsafe when under the watchful eye of the Department of Children and Families!

From Rilya Wilson to Nubia Barahona to Dontrell Melvin and onwards, we have too many dead children, too many excuses, too much handwringing. We have no real change in my state.

It's a cruel irony that children's protective services doesn't even come into play until after a child has suffered harm. But to allow that harm to accrue? To ignore it? To turn a blind eye and then cry crocodile tears when that child dies? To call these compounded failures "simple mistakes?"

These are not "simple mistakes."


No mistake that involves the death of a child ever will be.

These are shameful failures. They represent the utter failure of the system of care. They represent no meaningful caring at all.

The bottom line is that, in my state, saving money is more important than saving children's lives. 

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Child Welfare: Present Line of Thought

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Picking Up the Pieces

Since the beginning of the year, I've been having a hard time with the idea of blogging. I kept posting about other things I care about, doing a delicate dance around things and people near and dear to my heart. But things kept piling up, and up, and up. Finally, I just quit, because really, I didn't know what to say, or how to say it, or whether I could even legally say it. This morning, I just don't give a damn.


What have I been doing for the last decade or so? What was I thinking? Sure I had that idea that I could make things better for one child, one youth, at a time. Yeah, right. Instead, I'll just be there holding their hand while the train derails. Or maybe sometimes I was one of the engineers?


Since this post is a nice, big cathartic feast after a five week famine, I really suggest you turn back. Here, have an otter, or baby zoo animals. You'll walk away happy.


The child welfare system is, as anybody who reads this blog, who has worked in it, lived in it, aged out of it, so very, very broken. And it is self-perpetuating. Abuse begets abuse, neglect begets neglect, loss begets still more loss. I'm really at a point where I wonder, wearily, if it is even possible to fix the system, to stop the cycle, and whether anything I do makes any difference to anyone, including the kids I serve. I am skeptical, if not downright cynical, about whether a lot of people working from within the system are more interested in just having their job than they are in what their job was supposed to be doing. Or whether they even care that they are part of the problem and whether they ever wonder if they cause more problems, more damage. Because I sure do.


And then, there are the kids themselves... The ones who bear the weight of all the mistakes, the inability of the child welfare system to forge a positive change in their lives. Where to begin?


The day before Valentine's Day, I got a call from Snow White, who long time readers of the blog know is something of a success story. A young mother, Snow White won, against astounding odds, an RTI reinstatement case before the Third District Court of Appeals. She was and is, on the face of it, a good mother who chose caring for her daughter, even though it derailed her schooling and almost cost her her Road to Independence funding, the program that helps aged out foster youth when they turn 18. She has now graduated with her high school degree, has a beautician's license, and is ready to start work and college and life. Which is why it almost killed me to have to report her family for child abuse because her significant other battered her, stole from her, used substance, all in front of their child. While trying to limn that fine line between someone being a bad father while genuinely loving their child, being a bad partner while evidently loving you, Snow White lived and lives in the desperate world of many a former foster youth: the I Want A Family world, in which broken family is better than no family, and in which one can only hope that the system would agree with her and try to fix the broken parts. (It doesn't really, by the way. The system decides some things, and some people, are too broken to merit treatment.) 


To say that the rabbit hole that Snow White and I fell into on February 13 was a long and winding and unbearable fall (for the both of us) would be an understatement. She is now 21 and we have known each other for seven years. I was the constant in her life she could count on. I was also the one who almost cost her her daughter. But I did my duty and, in doing so, lanced the festering wound in her family and hoped the system would treat them, heal them. Good thing I am not holding my breath. We have since reached a sort of truce. She now sadly knows she can't tell me anything really bad because I'm a mandated reporter, a point that was never crystallized in her mind before. (So much comfort there, for the both of us...) but she knows that if she has a problem that does involve the need for help, for connections within the system, that I'm there for her. I am just hoping that the system, which isn't really great at breaking the cycle of abuse and neglect, will somehow vanquish some of the problems facing her and her daughter. But the means of dealing with  domestic violence (DV) in this county and in this state are egregiously outdated. (Maybe that's everywhere, though.) Even just domestic violence, treated wrongly as a concept isolated from substance abuse and rooted in gender, is outdated, when you look at decade old work by Corvo and Dutton, and others. DV is often not rehabilitated in terms of the success of programs- they aren't successful, by and large. The links between family violence, intimate partner violence, substance abuse and psychosocial dynamics are not often successfully addressed in our little corner of the world. Holistic isn't the first word that comes to mind when I think of dependency. (Nor are the terms 'evidence-based' and 'happy outcomes!'.)


Anyway, after the searing February, there was March.


In March, I found out via Facebook that the maternal grandmother of the talented young man who is now my oldest GAL case (first hugged him in January 2005) was terminally ill. He posted a status comment about it, in typical fashion, minimizing it. I was aghast to hear him say it was "no biggie", as was his adult sister, who came down to see Grandma and him. When his mom was on the streets, his grandmother loved and cared for him. His mother died of HIV in 2008. His father was deported to Suriname in 2004. His sister, also my GAL youth, ran away from Miami, in 2007. And this entire school year he was getting terrible grades and living in a dreamworld in which, when he turns 18 in September, he runs away to LA, with no contacts, no portfolio, no high school degree, and not even a contact email account that bears his proper name, and is discovered, becoming a famous actor and director. Talking with him in recent times, without crushing him, both because he is very bright, and because he is so adept at ignoring whatever is too painful to deal with straight on, has been probably the toughest run of my GAL 'career'. He is amazingly articulate and insightful, quick to call some of those who have worked on his case in court, 'condescending' among other things. To say this kid has lived with loss and has fought hard to bury everything painful he has endured would be the understatement of the century. And, after the continual revolving door of case managers (I count at least ten over the past 7 years and he told me a few weeks ago that "they change my case manager more frequently than I change my underwear...") he no longer really talked to his then case manager. I called her and told her what was going on about Grandma and that he'd even been to her house (a very bad scene according to the sister) and seen her. The case manager failed to document my concerns. (Including concerns about the 8% this kid had back then in Geometry, which, by the way, is rather surprising for a kid who was in the gifted program in math, from 3rd through 8th grade, before he got to his swanky and elite performing arts school and can you say CRY FOR HELP any louder, no you can't.) But she was in the weeds, evidently. Didn't document any of it. Didn't try to talk to him. Left the agency. The whole thing took a turn for the worse when his placement of 5 years began to disrupt. (A scenario described to Comtesse [redacted] as 'watching the slow motion derailment of a train'.) And then our wonderful child welfare system became all about covering asses and blame-shifting. To the point that after a discreet trip to the bathroom with a jurist, the agency 'had done so very much' to save that placement but they 'just couldn't save it'. And yeah, the youth, who has struggled mightily to express his feelings, in spite of being incredibly articulate and well-spoken for so many other things, was firmly stifled from the bench. So now he's in a good interim home and we get to look for where he can live on $892 a month, if he stays in school. (Age 18 and in the 11th grade, what a picnic it will be!) Since his school doesn't offer the school lunch program, I'm now going to be picking up 100% of the cost of lunch to try to eliminate that reason for dropping out because frankly, I do not see how he can manage otherwise. (For the past two years I was doing 50%, with the other 50% provided by the case management agency for their little star who should shut up and be quiet.) But hey, the happy story here is that the case management agency is good! And in another three months, they won't have to think about any of this anymore! Another successful outcome!!!! The world is filled with puppies!


So up to this point, I was still feeling okay about things. I mean, not happy, but as if there was still a purpose in being involved in the child welfare world. Then I got this FB message from a longtime friend and former GAL, who had been the beloved foster parent of the children in what is my second oldest case as a GAL. And therein, of course, lies still more sorrow. 


I'll just call her Lillie. She and her brother were placed for adoption in 2008. I had been their GAL since January of 2004. An unusual case, one that makes you really believe in Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome. (And I've had two such cases, what are the odds?) A hard case to work, with demands for knowledge of IDEA, Section 504, and disability educational expertise like none I have ever had. Lillie and her brother both suffered from severe auditory processing disorders and what appeared to be dyslexia. I struggled finding them proper evaluations and services, and got them into a superlative private remediative school, The Cushman School, on full scholarships, to rehabilitate their reading and math struggles. They were doing so well by 2007. They were, for the most part, happy kids, although Lillie has always had a tendency to feel somewhat sad and lonely. In 2008 they were adopted by a seemingly successful couple who had overcome, or so it seemed, their own learning problems. They had moved from Michigan to Florida and wanted a child desperately. They wanted a boy but were willing to take a sibling set. Voilà! A disaster is borne! And one I helped make, that I signed off on as their GAL. Long ago Lillie had promised her mother that she would take care of her little brother. So she agreed to the adoption, even though she didn't feel entirely comfortable with this family, well, specifically with the adoptive mother. The father appeared to be nice enough and that was enough for her. The parents didn't seem ideal from the standpoint of really learning about their prospective off-springs' specific deficits and needs. But they did get those evaluations entered into the school systems that they moved to successively. Good thing, because after that adoption was final, they moved, and moved, and moved. Because they kept losing their jobs and being evicted. Because they drank and were verbally abusive and angry people who got fired a lot. Because even though they passed a Children's Home Society homestudy, which cleared their background in the state of Florida, I later paid for a  full background check (too late, a mistake I will never, ever make again) myself and found out that they had a string of foreclosures and civil financial problems back home in Michigan. And I have to say that the idea of taking two instead of one when you're getting paid to take them makes great sense when you can't hold a job, right? Of course, right!


Lillie was miserable. Lillie tried to run away. Lillie reported abuse to me, which I reported to the state and which the state couldn't prove and didn't really look into all that much because it's just not the kinda thing they're into nowadays. Hey, no big bruises or marks, how bad can it be? I last saw her in early January, when she told me that she was just hoping she could stick it out until she turned 18, how miserable she was, how hard it has been. Lillie would come back to Miami and stay with her former foster mother every chance she got. In fact, Lillie is there now, in what is about to be, hopefully, her real 'forever home', except there are all these little details that are nagging at me. A forever home? Wasn't that the one you're adopted into? They kicked her out. She turns 18 in January. She will never get RTI now because she was adopted. She will get the free Florida Bright Futures Scholarship, if they deign to give her the documentation showing she's entitled to it. Speaking of which... There is no documentation so far as I know that make the arrangement legal and viable for the next 6 months. I have no idea if she has Medicaid, should she get sick or injured and with no documentation, the former foster mother cannot obtain Medicaid for her. I'm also not clear on whether they are giving the $500+ stipend the state pays them for Lillie to the I cannot tell you how incredible foster mother that has loved and nurtured her and made her a part of her family for all these years and is now taking her in for good. Guess why Lillie wasn't adopted into her foster mother's family? Her foster mother was too old to qualify. Guess what Lillie has endured? Psychological and physical abuse, separation from her mentally ill mother, now from her brother, and complete destruction of her childhood and adolescence. Yes indeedy, job done! I'm feeling like one helpful person these days. And part of a very helpful system.


Yes, yes, I have had cases that ended in successful adoption, including my first case, where the child ended up with her young aunt, about whom I can say only wonderful things. Or the multivisceral organ transplant toddler, adopted by the nurse with her private nursing company, who had lost a daughter to the same condition but found room in her heart for more love, more loss. Or the young man with the severe skeletal defects, adopted by a longtime friend, after her supporting him through grueling back surgery for terrible scoliosis and kyphosis and helping him deal with his other skeletal defects and his social isolation. None of those people kicked the children out.


But yeah, lately, everywhere I look, I see broken children, broken youths, broken system. 


The word discouraged is wholly inadequate.


And not to be mean or dismissive, but y'all can just skip the usual palliative, oh "poor Marzie was good" comments. That is so totally missing the point here. Feel angry at the system and sorry for these kids and what they endure in the child welfare demi-monde, not me. I live in a nice house, with my nice family and my lovely pets and my beautiful garden and the worst I have to deal with is waking up at night worrying about these youths, where they are, where they're headed and wonder about how it is that I can know three people for seven or eight years and have done so little to have helped them. That's the right question to be asking, to my mind. They are just three children, of the many cases, out there. And if this is how it goes, when a person is really trying to be in their corner, I don't want to imagine the rest.

---

Edited to add in the late afternoon:


When it rains, it pours. Keyoncé, 22 years old in late August, last mentioned on this blog because of his plight of being intellectually disabled, bipolar and working the oldest profession in the world under some very sketchy conditions on Biscayne Blvd., just called me. His APD is a mess and he needs an apartment because his electricity is off where he is right now. "I need you in my life, Marzie. I need you back as my GAL. I ain't got nobody, no family. Who's gonna help me? I can't live on $606 of SSI Disability. What am I gonna do? I'm tired. I want a Section VIII apartment but they don't take my application. Well, I don't know how to apply. You know I got problems reading."


Meeting: Wednesday, 11:30 am.


How do I tell him that I think Section VIII applications are closed but even if they weren't, he's not a woman with children? How do I tell him I don't know what to believe and not believe? How do I tell him that he needs to tell those fine folks at Our Kids and APD that yes, he really does turn tricks for added money?


Sigh. Camillus House, here we come.

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Honor Killings and Protective Intervention: Does a Universal Morality Exist? Should It?

Zainab Shafia

Rona Amir Muhammad and Sahar Shafia

Geeti Shafia

In a week that was dominated by the FL GOP primary, Mitt Romney not caring about the very poor, Susan G. Komen setting itself on fire and then dousing itself with tea and sympathy, as they apologized so very, very sincerely, two barely mentioned in the US news stories have stuck with me. They perfectly elucidate the crash of culture, of law, of the concept of honor between Afghani culture and that of the West. 

On Sunday, a jury in Ontario convicted Mohammed Shafia, age 58, his second wife, Tooba Yahya, 42, and their son, Hamed, age 21, of killing their three daughters (and Hamed's sisters) Zainab, age 19, Sahar, 17, and Geeti, 13. Mohammed's first wife (it was a plural Muslim marriage) Rona Amir Muhammad, age 52, was also killed by the trio, reportedly because she had been too indulgent with the three girls, not her own but evidently much loved by her. (Mr. Shafia had taken his second wife, Tooba Yahya, because Rona could not bear children.) The four women were found dead on June 30, 2009, purportedly drowned in a car that crashed into a canal in Kingston, Ontario, as the family returned from a leisure trip from Niagara Falls. Mr. and Mrs. Shafia claimed that their elder daughter had taken their car without permission, going for a joyride with her younger sisters and other mother and crashed into the canal. The police, however, believed that the women had been either drowned or incapacitated elsewhere, placed in the vehicle and the car pushed into the canal. Jurors in the case did not even need to hear excluded testimony, that of an 8 year old child who had been awake in his nearby house, who saw two, not one, cars, at the scene, heard the splash as one vehicle entered the water. Hamed, once in jail, told a slightly conflicting version from the initial story of the parents and that of the 8 year old, saying that he had followed his sister and accidentally bumped her Nissan with his Lexus, causing it to fatefully fall into the canal. No word on why he drove away and left them to drown, if that was the case. Early on in the investigation, however, allegations that this was an honor killing emerged. The wealthy family, who had moved to Canada in 2007, reportedly never really adjusted, or should we say, Mr. Shafia had never adjusted, to Western mores.

What could possibly induce a father, mother and brother to kill the three children? Zainab had been caught by Hamed sneaking around with her boyfriend. Sahar also had a boyfriend, who had been photographed with his arms around her. As if these hussies weren't bad enough, little Geeti, at 13, was evidently a rebel as well. The girls didn't want to wear hijab and there were an abundance of scandalous photos of them, some where they even were wearing shorts or sleeveless dresses! Why, they could almost be mistaken for regular Canadian girls!

From Hamed's damning Google search history ("where to commit a murder" and "can a prisoner have control over his real estate" being among the topics) to a court-ordered wiretap that caught Mr. Shafia mourning his dead girls by calling them "filth" and "whores" and that he would "defecate on their graves." When Zainab met a boy she liked at school, Shafia forced her to quit school. When it became apparent that all three girls would fight his authoritarian rule of his home, the conclusion of the Ontario jury was that he simply killed them all. 

In a fateful wiretapped phone exchange between Shafia and his son, Hamed, he was heard to say:

"Be I dead or alive, nothing in the world is above your honor. Isn't it right my son?"

He's also said they could hang him and he'd still have his honor.

On Sunday, Ontario superior court Judge Robert Maranger declared "It is difficult to conceive of a more heinous, more despicable, more honourless crime." "The apparent reason behind these cold-blooded, shameful murders was that the four completely innocent victims offended your completely twisted concept of honour ... that has absolutely no place in any civilised society."

This same week, mind you, there was the pretty much equally horrific story about a mother and son who killed the son's wife, known simply as Storai, age 22, because she had borne him a third daughter. We have no lovely photos of Storai, whose fate as the mother of three seems little better than Rona Amir Muhammed's fate as the de facto mother of none.

As the Women for Afghan Women director Manizha Naderi points out, "Girls are looked down upon in Afghanistan." Ms. Naderi, who has seen more than her share of horrors visited upon Afghan women and girls, and not just at the hands of the Taliban, I might add, was surprised, however, at the death of a wife for bearing female children. (I am too, since it's evident to me that Storai's husband's sperm are likely to blame here...) It's worth pointing out that Storai's husband, Sher Mohammed, is purported to be a member of a local militia (arbakai) in Kunduz province, and therefore not a Talib. Mr. Mohammed absconded and left Mommy holding the bag. His mother, Wali Hazrata, is in police custody for the deed. Of course, we know how it goes. I will always remember the harsh fate of Bibi Aisha's brutal father-in-law Suleiman, released from jail after a scant six months. I'm sure Mrs. Hazrata will be out in no time. After all, Storai was just a girl. It was like one piece of property killed another, not anything more. (Look, by the way, to the end of this post for an update on Aisha...)

In sum, we have the murder of three girls and their co-mother, because of honor, and the killing of a 22 year old because she was producing wrong sexed children, which isn't really honor-violating exactly, but maybe somehow it impugned Mr. Mohammed's sperm.

So here's the thing, the point I want my readers, many of whom work in the child welfare sector, to really mull over. Honor killings are on the rise, worldwide. Or at least, the awareness and reporting of them is increasing. We have one set of murders in the West, another murder (among the the many) in the East. Oh those mad, bad Afghanis. But... wait a minute. A mass honor-killing, here in North America? Weren't we supposed to be doing better here? I mean, you know, in theory, women, even Afghani women, should be safer here in the West, where women and men, girl children and boy children, have equal rights and equal rights to safety and well-being, correct? What do we do when culture and morality, when culture and gender equity, collide so terribly? What do we do when people come to the West from other cultures and fail to adapt to our morals and laws?

The other day I listened to several BBC World Service radio programs on honor killings, including one of 24 minutes and a more in-depth program, here and which I highly recommend, of almost an hour. The latter program dealt with the failure in Canada (and let's be frank, it could just have easily happened in the US or in any European country) to protect the three Shafia girls from their father. Christie Blatchford of the National Post has detailed, over the course of many months, the daunting protective failures in this case.

Looking at only a few months before the girls' death, Zainab Shafia went to a women's shelter in Montreal. She feared for her life because her brothers had told her father she had a Pakistani boyfriend. As is all too common in cases of domestic violence, nothing was done to really aid her, or her sisters, who remained at home with the father that Zainab reported she was extremely afraid of. Sahar was in the same risky boat, with the family trying to force her to marry an Afghani man, because she had been alone with her Brazilian Catholic boyfriend, who was so wholly inappropriate it was unthinkable. Geeti was... Geeti and irrepressibly willful.

There was much mention made, on the radio and in the press, of how timid social service agencies are to intervene in cases involving people of different cultures and faiths. Not just in Canada, or the US, but in the UK, as well. Of course, here in the US honor killings have also occurred, as you can see here with the horrifying murder of Noor al-Maleki, or here. There has been a fierce debate about media coverage (or lack thereof) of honor killings in the West, with criticisms from both sides of the political divide, see here and here, for example. As usual for me, rather than just looking at media coverage issues and whether the public even pays attention to these horrors, I also view things through the social services intervention paradigm.

Look at this bit testimony from the Shafia trials, quoted from Christie Blatchford's blistering article after the verdict in the case:

Det. Lefebvre was a child-abuse investigator (who) interviewed the children, and one of Sahar’s chief complaints was a lack of freedom. 

Prosecutor Lacelle asked her, “How did Sahar appear?” and Det. Lefebvre replied, “Well, I was surprised. She said she had no freedom, but she was well-dressed, wore jewelry, had nice makeup. She did not seem depressed.” 

And the detective told Sahar that: “I said, ‘no freedom?’. I said, ‘You’re well-dressed, have nice makeup.’”

Social workers in a women's shelter looked at Zainab and saw an exotic, beautiful, well-spoken, well-dressed woman, dripping with jewelry and thought she couldn't possibly be abused. Zainab claimed that her authoritarian father was out to kill her. And she was right, of course. But there were so many other protective failures: school and other social service entities including the police, disregarded the threats to these girls, the oldest two of whom had warned boyfriends and boyfriend's family to never, ever act as if they knew them if they saw them in public and were with family, even their brothers, because it could mean their death. Interviews were conducted by investigators after various complaints and reports, some of which used the family's children themselves as translators (do not get me started!), to no avail. Reports were filed but nothing was done. The timidity of social workers and first responders to get involved, reportedly stemmed from cultural differences. Or perhaps more accurately cultural ignorance in not believing that the threat was real.

Although I know the source might disturb my atheist readers, I found an interesting article on Uncommon Descent about Bibi Aisha's mutilation at the hands of her family (another honor-related attack, rendered only slightly less heinous by the fact she has survived). Uncommon Descent, which I'll warn you from the start is an Intelligent Design Theory blog, hooked me into reading this article, although I disagree with it on a number of points, because of its opening thesis: A teacher shows students a photo of Aisha and asks for their reaction and is appalled. (The UD article is also valuable for its thorough discussion of the despicable practice of baad, which is how Bibi Aisha ended up in her horrible circumstances.) There is actually a sequential series of articles or blog posts from differing sites, discussing the moral ambiguities involved ("Is it wrong if another culture says it's right?") which stemmed from a post of the same title and A Teacher's Surprising Discovery, which in turn led me to the original source: "Moments of Startling Clarity", an article by Dr. Stephen L. Anderson in Education Forum magazine. I strongly encourage all my readers to check out this thought-provoking article, if you read only a single link from this blog post. 

I have alluded to the results of Dr. Anderson's philosophy class's reaction to a photo of Bibi Aisha and what happened to her. When shown her photo, rather than the strong aversion he anticipated, he was rather dismayed by student commentary, such as:

"Well, we might not like it, but maybe over there, that's okay."

Another offered:

"It's just wrong to judge other cultures."

As Dr. Anderson describes it, his students were absolutely morally timorous in decrying what had been done to Aisha. He fears that unskilled teaching of cultural tolerance and non-judgmentalism is yielding a result of ethical paralysis in youth today. I think we should question whether it is yielding similar results in the world at large. It certainly did in Canada, where as Christie Blatchford puts it:

"In the long weeks and months before their deaths, knew they were in danger, that they were afraid, and that their pleas for help were misunderstood or minimized."

These are, of course, difficult issues, which tread dangerously on the edge of civil rights and the rights to follow one's faith, culture and tradition in a new country. The chance for oppression, of someone, at either end of the situation, is ever-present. And yet these are issues which we must address, within our own country and in the world at large. Just as France has moved forward, after much dialogue, with its hijab/niqab ban, we must begin here in the US, and in Canada, to address the issue of safeguarding citizens and residents who come from different cultures as best we can, even if we must bravely face controversy in doing so.

A thoughtful commenter on one of the BBC radio programs summarized his own, and that of his family's, adjustment to moving to the UK. He decided that the same freedoms that drew him to England would ultimately mean his daughters must join that freer world. Another gentleman said that this was nothing to do with honor but the power that many men felt they had to have over their families and specifically their daughters and that it was a personal power trip for some Afghani men. These two callers were Pakistani and Afghani respectively. So it's not as if émigrés aren't capable of getting the broad points of living in these different and more open cultures.

Recently, I attended a child welfare meeting and read a draft Case Manager Role statement. One of the supports that was requested of GALs (which was not the capacity in which I was attending and thus I could not comment upon it) was:

GALs should consider the child, family and caregivers in the context of culture and circumstances in which they live, and their values and aspirations.

In principle, I think, yes, yes. But I look at the photos of the beautiful Shafia girls and the beloved co-Mother and I'm not so sure I can flatly agree with the intent in that statement anymore. Should I just accept other cultures' customs without question? Did considering the family cultural values in the Shafia family properly safeguard Zainab, Sahar and Geeti?

When do we stop accepting culturally-accepted mistreatment? At what point do we risk controversy to step in?

There are, as I say, no easy answers. But this dialogue must begin if we are to safeguard women and girls at risk of harm.*

Protecting children from harm is a universal moral issue. It supersedes cultural tolerance. And as Dr. Anderson says, if the cost of peace is denial of social justice, the price is too high.


*Of course, Muslim culture, even with its honor killings and female circumcision and practices like baad and mut'ah, are not the only cultural practices that harm. I am not solely talking about Western moral assessments of culturally-accepted misdeeds against women and children in the Muslim world, but those seen in any culture. This post, however, specifically addresses the plight of women and children subject to harm under Afghani cultural norms.


Edited to add:

On Saturday, Muslim clerics of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada issued a fatwa against honor killings, domestic violence and hatred of women. Fatwas are morally binding religious edicts issued as a community reminder of the fundamental teachings of the Qu'ran. Prior fatwas issued by the ISCC include a condemnation of the terrorist actions of 9/11, and against the Taliban for forbidding girls to attend school.

---

Several of my longtime readers have requested an update on Bibi Aisha. In November 2011, Aisha moved in with an Afghan family where she is regarded as a daughter. They have expedited her application for political asylum in the US and taken charge of her medical and educational needs (Aisha had been illiterate, as is common for many Afghani girls). She is learning English. She has been seeing a psychiatrist and therapist, as well as a medical doctor. With asylum, she will fully rebuild her life on her own terms. Readers may recall that there have been delays in Aisha's surgery to reconstruct her nose and ears. Those who query the delays in her surgical procedures should consider what these invasive procedures may pose to her, in terms of triggering traumatic memories. Now 21, she has plenty of time.

You can keep up with Aisha's progress reports at Women for Afghan Women. 

© Bright Nepenthe, 2012

Thinking About Poverty, Part 3

This is Part 3 in a two part series on Poverty. You can read Part 1 here, and Part 2 there. This part? It's the Outrage Part.

Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.

~ T. S. Eliot in Burnt Norton, from The Four Quartets

---

On September 13, 2011 Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders gave a speech in the US Senate about Poverty. I encourage all my readers to please take the 8 minutes of time to listen to his speech.

A response salvo was fired off to the National Review on September 21st by that hail fellow, well met Senator from Kentucky, (I can feel Comtesse Glam cringing...) Rand Paul. It took a full week to reply to Senator Sanders because Senator Paul was pouring over facts and statistics trying to controvert Senator Sanders's statements. In contrast to Senator Sanders quoting those boring old statistics and facts and saying where he got them from, Senator Paul has given us broad statements of what I like to call, in Colbertian fashion, "truthy facts". Poverty, Mr. Paul assures us, is not a death sentence, and isn't really all that bad even! :)

"While we all hope to lessen the sting of poverty, we need to put poverty in America into context... Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation has profiled the typical poor household in America. The average poor household has a car, air conditioning, two color televisions, cable or satellite TV, a DVD player, and an Xbox. Its home is in good repair and bigger than the average (non-poor) European home. They report that in the past year they were not hungry, were able to obtain medical care as necessary, and could afford all essential needs."

I find it very strange that the US Senator from Kentucky is relying on the Heritage Foundation for specifics rather than sourcing his own facts and statistics from his facts and statistics obsessed government, but giving him the benefit of the doubt, I went to Heritage Foundation's Poverty and Inequality page and looked for information about where they got their figures. Emblazoned on the page is:

"Poor persons in the United States have far higher living standards than the public imagines.  Overall, the typical American defined as poor by the government has a car, air conditioning, a refrigerator, a stove, a clothes washer and dryer, and a microwave. He has two color televisions, cable or satellite TV reception, a VCR or DVD player, and a stereo. He is able to obtain medical care. His home is in good repair and is not overcrowded. By his own report, his family is not hungry, and he had sufficient funds in the past year to meet his family's essential needs. While this individual's life is not opulent, it is equally far from the popular images of dire poverty conveyed by the press, liberal activists, and politicians. 

The major causes of child poverty in the United States in any year will be the absence of married fathers in the home and low levels of parental work."

Okay, I'm not even going to touch the fact that the low levels of parental work are responsible for poverty (did they just say these kids' parents are lazy?) But you know, I could not find a source for this information. But I did find an article by Rector, claiming his stats are from a government survey (implying they were from the Census) in 2005, which was NOT a US Census year and which, oh, let me remember, was yes, before the economy really began to tank. There was no further information about where to get these facts and verify the information on their statistical accuracy. Hmmmm.

Well, Senator Paul and Mr. Rector, luckily for you I am the very soul of data on the issue of poverty at present. Especially child poverty, but in the course of looking for data on poverty faced by children, I have come across more than a few sources of information on the population as a whole. I'm sorry to say that unfortunately, some of them are promoted, funded or tallied by our US Government. I know that source may not be good enough for you. 

But first let's start with some child statistics culled from that highly suspect organization the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Here are some screen captures from their site, Kids Count, which used data from the 2010 United States Census and various other clearly named sources:

Census Bureau, Current Population Survey (March supplement).1990-2006 data: The Urban Studies Institute at the University of Louisville, analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey (March supplement). 2007-2011 data: Population Reference Bureau, analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey (March supplement).

Census Bureau, Current Population Survey (March supplement).Population Reference Bureau, analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey (March supplement).

Mortgage Bankers Association, National Delinquency Survey, 2007 to 2009; U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey, 2007 to 2009

Population Reference Bureau analysis of Current Population Survey (CPS) Basic Monthly data 2007 - 2010

Population Reference Bureau analysis of Current Population Survey (CPS) Basic Monthly data 2007 - 2010

Why, all those kids aren't really under duress! Oh, no! And they have excellent healthcare, happy families and X-Boxes. Well, maybe they have no place to plug the X-Box in, if Mommy and Daddy's house was foreclosed on. But other than that, they are all fine! (Isn't it ironic that that children without healthcare stat is in part thanks to an Urban Studies Institute at the University of Louisville study? No, really?!)

I'm sure you remember the food insecurity issue for children from Parts 1 & 2 of my blog article on poverty but just in case you didn't, let's recap. 22% of all children in the US live in poverty, 42% live in low income households, the USDA provides 31 million free school lunches to children who qualify and there's the sliver that falls through the gap- children whose households make between 185% and 199% of the Federal Poverty Level Income but are still considered low income. And the total number of children in food insecure homes in the most recent year tracked (2009) was 23.2 according to the US Government's Child Stats site.

Hmmmm. I wonder who else might be food insecure, besides all those chickadees? Well, SAMHSA.gov provides some broad information on their homelessness portal, that applies not just to the homeless. For instance, there is the Food Hardship in America report for 2010, prepared by the Food Research Action Center. This report, listed by a US government agency blatantly states: 

"The national data show that the struggle of tens of millions of American households to afford adequate food did not, by and large, get easier in 2010. While the nation’s Great Recession technically ended in mid-2009 (measured by growth in the Gross Domestic Product), it has not yet ended for most of the nation’s households. For them, 2010 was the third year of a recession that continues to have severe adverse impact on their well-being."

Or how about this SAMHSA.gov featured report, Food Insecurity Among Older Adults, prepared by the AARP. (Those damn lazy elderly/retirees! They are just dragging us down!) Some of their findings, and by the way, AARP offers up plenty of information about how their methods, how data was collected and what statistics were used to calculate their findings:

Our key findings on the trends and distribution of food insecurity are:

• Across all categories and older adult age groups, food insecurity increased substantially after 2007. The increases were most pronounced among 40-49 year olds, followed by 50-59 year olds, and then those 60 and older. Food insecurity for 40-49 year olds increased to an astounding 68 percent between 2007-2009 compared to 38 percent for 50-59 year olds, and 25 percent among those over 60. Rates of very low food security rates among adults in their 50s had comparable increases to those in their 40s (69 percent versus 71 percent). 

• The increasing trend in food insecurity implies that by 2009, among adults age 50 and older, 15.6 million persons faced the threat of hunger (i.e. were marginally food insecure), 8.8 million faced the risk of hunger (i.e. were food insecure), and 3.5 million faced hunger (i.e. were low food secure). This is an increase of 66%, 79%, and 132%, respectively, from the levels of food insecurity in 2001 among this population. 

• The levels of food insecurity among the poor and near poor are two to three times higher in any given year than for the general population of those over age 50. However, there is not nearly as dramatic an increase in food insecurity after 2007 among the poor and near poor in comparison to those higher in the income distribution. Thus, the recessionary increase in adult food insecurity was most pronounced among those with higher incomes.

Yes, indeed, I just do not know where Senator Sanders got this idea that things were bad in this country. Things are just fine here, Senator Paul. Everyone is just fine.

Oh, and Senator Paul also makes the claim:

"Over 30 percent of those living below the poverty smoke, compared with 19 percent of the rest of the population. Obesity rates are significantly higher among the poor than the general population..."

It seems as if the Senator has never reflected on the fact that the nicotine in cigarette smoke is well known for its appetite suppressant effects and that obesity rates are higher among the American poor because their diet is skewed toward cheap, high fat and high sugar foods that they can afford to eat, when they can eat. Food insecurity is directly tied to obesity (btw, that latter link was to the most current article I found on the topic on that cheesy and unreliable National Institutes of Health, National Library of Medicine PubMed search engine) and it is also clearly tied to diabetes, as detailed in a recent report title "The Inextricable Connection Between Food Insecurity and Diabetes" by the California Pan-Ethic Health Network, which receives the bulk of its funding from the highly questionable California Department of Public Health.

Oh, and one final comment, about the Poverty and Inequity page over at Heritage Foundation. They have a couple of links there that are interesting, namely:

Maybe it's just me but the idea that the number of Americans who pay taxes continues to shrink might possibly have something to do with the fact that so many Americans are living in frigging poverty! It seems to me some of those poor people might need to depend on government assistance. But shucks, that's just my take.

Anyway, I'm done here. For now.

© Bright Nepenthe, 2011