Geisha Kow­lessar

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan says nine mem­bers of the con­tro­ver­sial Or­tho­dox Jew­ish sect Lev Tahor, who ar­rived at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port on Mon­day, will be re­turned to Cana­da.In an in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian, Ram­lo­gan said the T&T Gov­ern­ment has been li­ais­ing with the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties in Cana­da and he was of the firm view that the wel­fare of the chil­dren was para­mount in the mat­ter.Say­ing the chil­dren were the sub­ject of a child pro­tec­tion or­der in the provence of Que­bec, Ram­lo­gan added, "We are li­ais­ing with our coun­ter­parts to fa­cil­i­tate their swift re­turn."

Mean­while, spokesman for the group Lee Bolton, speak­ing to the T&T Guardian from Cana­da yes­ter­day, said it was re­port­ed that around 5 pm yes­ter­day, law en­force­ment agen­cies, in­clud­ing the Roy­al Cana­di­an Mount­ed Po­lice, On­tario Pre­ven­tion­al Po­lice, Chatham Kent Po­lice, Peel Re­gion­al Po­lice and the Cana­di­an Bor­der Po­lice, were ex­pect­ed to board a flight to Trinidad to es­cort the group back to Cana­da.She said the court gave the child pro­tec­tion ser­vice in On­tario the green light to re­turn the chil­dren from Trinidad on Wednes­day."The child pro­tec­tion ser­vice in On­tario was grant­ed an or­der to ap­pre­hend the chil­dren. The de­ci­sion was made yes­ter­day (Wednes­day) but it was on­ly re­vealed to­day (yes­ter­day). It is set to hap­pen to­mor­row (to­day)."

And amid al­le­ga­tions of phys­i­cal beat­ings, sex­u­al abuse, un­der­age mar­riage and forced med­ica­tion of the chil­dren of Lev Tahor, Bolton, a Cana­di­an hu­man rights ac­tivist, made a fi­nal ap­peal to the T&T Gov­ern­ment not to de­port the sect mem­bers.The nine–three adult mem­bers of the sect and six chil­dren– were de­tained at Pi­ar­co by im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers. One of­fi­cial said the sect mem­bers were en route to Mex­i­co and had re­fused to go back to Toron­to. They al­so tried to get pas­sage to Guatemala.Bolton said she un­der­stood their pass­ports had been seized.

Lev Tahor per­se­cut­ed, says al­ly

Bolton knocked the child pro­tec­tion sys­tem in On­tario, de­scrib­ing it as very in­tru­sive and abu­sive to fam­i­lies and their chil­dren.Bolton, who is not Jew­ish and is not re­lat­ed to the Lev Tahor com­mu­ni­ty, said, "Our child pro­tec­tion in­dus­try us­es ap­pre­hen­sion as a first op­tion rather than try to keep the fam­i­lies to­geth­er. It is my ex­pert and ed­u­cat­ed opin­ion that the child pro­tec­tion in­dus­try in all of Cana­da is main­ly about mak­ing mon­ey."I have great con­cern if the chil­dren of the Lev Tahor should be sent back to Cana­da and the child pro­tec­tion agency is per­mit­ted to take these chil­dren in­to their care." The Lev Tahor com­mu­ni­ty re­lo­cat­ed to Chatham, On­tario, from Que­bec last No­vem­ber.Bolton said she and an­oth­er ad­vo­cates ap­proached the com­mu­ni­ty when they were hav­ing dif­fi­cul­ty with the child pro­tec­tion work­ers. "It seemed right from the be­gin­ning that the On­tario and Que­bec child pro­tec­tion agen­cies were on a mis­sion to slan­der the Lev Tahor com­mu­ni­ty by re­fer­ring to them as 'Tal­iban,' 'cult,' and mak­ing sev­er­al deroga­to­ry re­marks and al­le­ga­tions con­cern­ing Rab­bi Shlo­mo and oth­er mem­bers of their com­mu­ni­ty," Bolton said.

She said she spent sev­er­al months with the com­mu­ni­ty and some of the chil­dren and got to know some mem­bers quite well by spend­ing time in their homes, of­fice and around their school.

"I find the mem­bers of the Lev Tahor to be very kind and lov­ing par­ents that on­ly want what's best for their chil­dren. The par­ents are not on­ly af­fec­tion­ate with their own chil­dren, but help to lookafter oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers chil­dren when the need aris­es."I per­son­al­ly have nev­er wit­nessed or have any con­cerns of any type of abuse or ne­glect with­in this Lev Tahor com­mu­ni­ty. As a mat­ter of fact I wish every child in the world could ex­pe­ri­ence some of the love, com­pas­sion, re­spect and care the chil­dren in the Lev Tahor Com­mu­ni­ty are sub­ject­ed to reg­u­lar­ly," Bolton said.

She added, "As much as I would like to have the en­tire Lev Tahor com­mu­ni­ty back to­geth­er in Chatham-Kent, it is my hope that doesn't hap­pen while they are still un­der the threat of hav­ing chil­dren ap­pre­hend­ed by the child pro­tec­tion agency here and in Que­bec."