Hey guys, please read this appeal by a Nigerian mother of 3 to the Canadian government who might deport her soon.
I somehow find this desperate. Saying negative things about your country Nigeria just to seek asylum doesn't make any sense to me.
Read her letter below:
"My name is Winifred Agimelen. I am a 36-years-old mother of three: one boy (11) and two girls (8 and 5, one born Canadian).
I am from Nigeria. I’ve lived here in Canada for six years. I came in March of 2008. I have a deportation date for Sunday September 14th 2014.
I was kidnapped in Nigeria with my two kids by a ritualist who wanted to use me and my kids for sacrifice to his gods. He was also planning to perform female genital mutilation on my daughter who was only one and a half at the time, since according to him his gods do not accept uncircumcised females.
I was afraid of seeing my daughter go through that because I am a victim of female genital mutilation myself. So, at risk to our lives, we managed to escape Nigeria.
I’ve never set my eyes on the father of my kids again since the day we were kidnapped.
I was able to come to Canada with my kids. Here I applied for refugee status thinking I would be safe. It was here I realized I was pregnant again and later had my youngest girl.
My refugee claim was refused and I’ve done all I could to be legal here. My PRRA was refused as well.
Without their father whose whereabouts to date I do not know, things were very hard for me and my kids. At some point, I had to move on.
I got married to a Canadian resident named Valentine Ike Daniels and he made a sponsorship application for me in 2012 so I could become a permanent resident. But this application was refused since he had become a permanent resident himself too recently. He re-applied again in February of this year.
We have waited seven months and we need to wait only five more months to get approval for the first stage of the application.
Right now Immigration Canada says it won’t allow us to wait for the answer and went ahead to set a date for our removal: to deport me and my kids.
My lawyer Angela Potvin requested an administrative stay on the order. That also was refused on Friday, September 6th.
I am so afraid for my children in Nigeria because of Ebola.
I am fearful that my girls would be targeted for female genital mutilation. My youngest daughter, Elizabeth (who is a Canadian), is at the traditional right age for it in Nigeria, where there are no laws forbidding the practice. If by law this is not accepted in Canada, why should a Canadian go through it in another country?
I do not want my kids to suffer this. A lot of Christian women have had this done to them in the south where I come from, including myself.
I also don’t want to go into hiding in the north of Nigeria because that is where Boko Haram is active and girls are their target for kidnapping.
I am also afraid for my son, Aaron Afuah, who has been diagnosed with PTSD, ADHD and speech delay. In Nigeria kids with such conditions are treated as if they were products of witchcraft.
My son risks being bullied, brutally tortured or even death in Nigeria because of his conditions.
In Montreal we have found proper care for him. He has been on treatment since 2011 and was transferred from Douglas Hospital to his present special school for kids with such disabilities.
My kids speak only English and French. My kids need to have peace and to be safe. They need their family together and need not suffer any more traumas. I don’t have the resources to be deported and then later come back.
We have nothing in Nigeria and I can’t protect them there. I beg for humanity.
Our lives are here. My kids go to school here. I work and pay taxes here. For the six years we have lived our lives in Canada, we are good people. We deserve to be here. I beg Immigration Canada to wait for only five more months so I can have the answer to our application and finally have the status that I have fought so hard to have since I got here.
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