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"We all stood together": Gitanmaax Band stops BC social worker from seizing youth

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The Gitanmaax Band in northern B.C. is standing its ground, refusing to let the provincial child welfare system remove another one of its children.

On Sunday night, allies joined the band's hereditary chiefs in blocking road access as a social worker entered the Hazelton, B.C., reserve to take a six-year-old girl back into foster care.

The girl was visiting her matrilineal family for a week in Gitanmaax, and belongs to the Git'luuhl'um'hetxwit house of the Gitxsan Nation.

"We never want to lose a child," said Kolin Sutherland-Wilson, who belongs to the same Gitxsan house group and attended the resistance demonstration on Sunday.

"We never want those children to grow up without knowing who they are, where they come from, who their ancestors are — their history, their stories, their inheritance."

According to the community, the child has been placed in the protection of her house group.

On Instagram, Sutherland-Wilson posted that she is "surrounded by loved ones ... learning our language, playing with cousins, and hearing the stories of her ancestors."

To protect her identity, little information has been shared about the girl's family circumstances in Gitanmaax or her previous experience in provincial foster care.

Her house group said she suffered a broken collarbone under the ministry's care, but details of that injury were also kept private.

Sutherland-Wilson said no full custody agreement has been reached for the girl.

For more info, please go to: https://globalnews.ca/news/8275631/gitanmaax-band-stops-bc-socia-worker-from-seizing-youth/

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Category
U.S. & Canada
Tags
global news, Bc child protection services, Bc child welfare system
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