Buffalo, NY: “culture clash” blamed for Somali children being removed from their parents

This story will get your blood boiling on a whole lot of levels!  Basically Social Services in Buffalo has removed 6 Somali children from the home of their 28-year-old mother and an allegedly abusive father. 

The mother says she wishes she were back in Africa.

Somalian immigrant Malaika Sabtow raised five children in African refugee camps, surviving for 14 years without electricity, amid persistent drought and regular outbreaks of malaria and tuberculosis.

But none of those 14 years, she said, was as bad as the past five months in Buffalo.

That’s how long it has been since the Erie County Department of Social Services took all of her children —she now has six, including a nursing 2-month-old daughter — and placed them in a foster home for reasons Sabtow doesn’t understand.

Sabtow, 28, wishes she were back in Africa. 

Supporters of Sabtow claim the county was overzealous in taking away her children and are concerned she and her husband, Madhey A. Khamis, are being treated unfairly because they are new to the country and don’t speak English.

Social Services Commissioner Carol Dankert said she could not comment on why the children were removed or whether they would be returned.

Read on, there are lots of interesting details about the case.

Then towards the end, comes the ‘uh-oh’ part.  I’m wagering that the next time we read about this case, CAIR will have ridden into town and it will no longer be your basic child-abuse case but will have morphed into a Muslim discrimination case.

The children have been split among three foster homes — none of which is a Muslim family, said Omar, the imam (of the Islamic Cultural Association of Western New York). 

One of the boys, Mustaffa, 12, was pulled out of an Islamic boarding school and placed in School 19, even though his parents paid $3,600 in advance for the boy to attend the private school.  [Where do refugees living on welfare get money for private school?]

According to Omar, Mustaffa told his mother that the people he was living with would not allow him to practice Islam.

A daughter, Fatuma, 11, also has not been allowed to wear the traditional Muslim head scarf, Omar said.

And none of the children was able to participate in Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, he said.

This is the stealth jihad.  As this case develops I will bet you a buck that no social service agency (probably anywhere in NY) will dare to take Muslim kids (or a beaten woman either) out of an abusive home.   It is their culture afterall, even the title to the Buffalo News story tells us that.

Update:  According to Refugee Works website, here, there are three resettlement agencies bringing Somalis and other refugees to Buffalo.  They are the International Institute (USCRI affiliate, I presume), Catholic Charities (they do a lot of Somali resettlement across the country), and Journey’s End Refugee Services, Inc.

Spread the love

Leave a Reply