Several Old Order Mennonite families will get their children back, after a court hearing in Winnipeg Friday.
The five families met with Child and Family Services; officials agreed to return all 19 of their children to their care by November. The kids range in age from 2 months to 9 years. Twenty one other children from other families in the same isolated, traditional community remain in the custody of CFS.
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Provincial child welfare workers seized dozens of children earlier this year — all but one in the community — after several adults were charged with assaults on kids.
Thirteen adults face charges of abuse based on allegations of children being struck with cattle prods, whips and leather straps between July 2011 and January 2013.
The followers of a traditional lifestyle who avoid modern ways, arrived at the Law Courts in Winnipeg just after noon dressed all in black, the men in dark suits and wearing hats, the women in flowing dark dresses and their heads covered in bonnets.
The community near Gladstone, Manitoba can’t be identified to protect the identity of the children in care with Child and Family Services.
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