Greater openness and a focus on preventing male violence are urgently needed following the slaying of two young children, allegedly by their father, say anti-domestic violence advocates.
That message comes in the wake of the murder of a boy and girl, aged five and three, whose bodies were found in a vehicle Thursday morning in the 4500 block of 14 St. N.W. in Calgary. The children's father has been charged with first-degree murder.
Community Impact and Resource Gaps
The family devastated by the tragedy were members of a local Eritrean church and belong to a wider group of African immigrants whose welfare and protection are poorly resourced, said Dee Adekugbe, CEO of Ruth's House, a domestic violence shelter.
“It’s getting worse and we’re the only ones addressing this (in our community),” Adekugbe said. “We need more advocacy, education and language support.” She noted her seven-bed facility “is always full” and is woefully small for the people it serves.
Police Response and Custody Issues
Police reported that the children's common-law parents had been separated for about a year and had a “domestic history” with law enforcement. Officers had attended the address where the children lived four times previously. The parents shared custody, and the father had taken the youngsters on a trip west of the city Wednesday without apparent danger. When he failed to return them, the mother contacted police.
Police attended the mother’s residence, but with no custody orders in place, patrol officers advised her to seek a court order to give police authority to return the children. The father later drove with the children's bodies to a police district office, alerted officers to the deaths, and confessed to the killings. The next day, officers notified the mother of her children's deaths. While the exact time and location of the killings remain unknown, police said indications point to shortly before midnight Wednesday.
Call for Change
Adekugbe emphasized that more focus should be placed on children “who are often not seen to be in danger, are often used as pawns.” This is challenging in the African community, which tends to be more insular. “We have a cone of silence … we don’t like to bring shame to our families, to our name,” she said. “We’ve been encouraging our community to seek help, to speak out.”
She added that one-third of African-origin families in Calgary experience some form of domestic violence, often driven by stresses from isolation, unemployment, and affordable housing issues.
