Guinean family gets relief from deportation

A Guinean family, which has been facing a threat of deportation, has received temporary relief, as the Canadian government has stayed their deportation.

Keita Mansare had expressed fear that her daughters would to be forced to marry and may be subjected to genital mutilation in their home country of Guinea, according to the family’s lawyer Salif Sangare.

However, Canadian immigration minister, Jason Kenney, has intervened to stop the deportation of the Montreal family at the last minute.

The Government of Canada has stayed the removal of the Mansaré family, pending a second Pre-Removal Risk Assessment (PRRA). The family’s first PRSA was refused in 2011, and usually, there is no stay after an initial PRRA has been rejected and an applicant files a second PRRA. The Mansaré family, which arrived in Canada in 2007, can continue to stay in Montreal until the assessment is completed.

The family’s initial asylum claim was rejected in 2009 by the Immigration and Refugee Board on the ground that “Kankou Keita Mansaré, the primary claimant, lacked credibility and that her testimony was unreliable” a statement by the Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) said.

The family’s application for judicial review was also dismissed by the Federal Court in the same year.

On 11 March 2012, the Mansaré family failed to show up for their scheduled removal, CIC said, and on 29 March 2012, the federal court denied a motion for a stay of removal.

“At no point during any of these proceedings before the IRB, the Federal Court and during their PRRA did anyone in the Mansaré family offer evidence of potential gender-based violence, such as female genital mutilation or forced marriage, if they are returned,” said the CIC statement.

“They and their representatives have now voiced this concern to the media — never to the government— for the first time as they face imminent removal.

“Out of an abundance of caution, the family will be provided a second Pre-Removal Risk Assessment.

“Canada’s immigration and refugee protection system is one of the most generous in the world and decisions to remove are not taken lightly.

“The stay of removal that has been granted will allow the decision-maker to consider any new evidence of potential risks upon removal.

“I’m really happy and I don’t know how to thank him (the minister) and the people of Canada,” Zenab Mansare, one of Keita Mansare’s daughters, told LCN Television Sunday.

The family first arrived in Canada in 2007 and applied for asylum on humanitarian grounds.

Guinea has the fifth-highest rate of female genital mutilation in the world according to the World Health Organization, with about 40 per cent of women being forced into the procedure, says Leader Post.