Halifax couple desperately trying to adopt 3 children from Lebanon against a ticking clock
CBC
In Victoria Joumaa's Halifax home, there are bedrooms furnished with single beds — soccer balls on the nightstands in one room, a pink owl clock and a plush panda toy in the other — with clothing in both closets, all for children who do not live there.
"We just want to bring our kids home," said Joumaa, wiping away tears. "That's it. That's all we want."
The children are Joumaa's biological cousins. She says Anthony Makhlouf, 13, and his siblings, Charbel, 12, and Theresa, 6, have suffered from neglect and abuse most of their lives because their parents struggle with mental health issues and addiction. They have also lived through war.
Joumaa is already their legal guardian, but for the last five years — motivated by the 2020 explosion that killed more than 200 people in Beirut — she has been trying to adopt them and bring them to Canada.
Now, she says, time is running out: the boys will be forced to leave their orphanage at the end of June.
Both biological parents willingly signed over their rights to Joumaa in December 2020, and Lebanese legal documents show that ruling also allows the children to leave the country without their biological parents.
Joumaa, 28, has tried various ways to bring the children to Canada, including through intercountry adoption and temporarily, on visitor visas. In the latter case, she was rejected three times because the federal government doesn't believe the children will ever leave Canada.
She acknowledges she made some paperwork mistakes before she got a lawyer involved.
At one point, she reached out to her member of Parliament, Lena Metlege Diab, who is now Canada's minister of immigration, refugees and citizenship, and a member of Halifax's Lebanese community. The minister's office said she could not help.
"It is factually and legally untrue that the minister cannot help," said Chantal Desloges, Joumaa's immigration lawyer.
A spokesperson said the minister was unavailable for an interview and due to privacy legislation could not comment on specific cases.
Joumaa has provided extensive documentation to CBC News, proving her guardianship and showing the various processes she has attempted in Canada, including the corresponding rejection letters from the Canadian government.
In April of this year, both biological parents also wrote letters to support Joumaa's most recent application to bring the children to Canada.
"I want Anthony, Charbel, and Theresa to be able to leave Lebanon as this is no deserving life for them, I know they will be cared for, loved, supported and presented with a loving family home with Victoria and her spouse, Jaya, in Canada," the children's mother, Ibtissam Mohamad Al Mohamad, wrote.
WARNING: This story details allegations of child abuse.
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