KINGSTON, Ont. — A pair of teenage sisters allegedly killed by their parents and brother were so desperate to escape from their family home that they asked seemingly every authority figure they encountered for help, court heard Thursday.
The family murder trial has heard this week from a stream of teachers, vice-principals, police officers, social workers and youth protection workers, who testified about various tales the girls told them of verbal, emotional and physical abuse.
A teacher who noticed bruises, scratches and other marks on 17-year-old Sahar Shafia’s arms referred her to a social worker in the high school just weeks before Sahar died, court heard Thursday. The teenager told social worker Stephanie Benjamin that she was afraid of being beaten by her father.
“What she was asking me, in fact, was to help her to find a job to be able to set aside money to leave the home as soon as she’d reach adult age,” Benjamin testified in French through an interpreter. Sahar would have turned 18 in October.
Instead, she and her sisters Zainab, 19, and Geeti, 13, were found dead along with Rona Amir Mohammad, 50, their father’s first wife in a polygamous marriage, in a car submerged at the bottom of a canal in Kingston, Ont. The Crown alleges they were killed over family honour.
Their parents — Tooba Mohammad Yahya, 41, and Mohammad Shafia, 58 — and their brother Hamed, 20, have each pleaded not guilty to four counts of first-degree murder.
Sahar met with Benjamin on June 8 and 9, 2009, and during the second meeting she said she wasn’t afraid of being at home anymore because her parents had separated and her father was living in a motel, Benjamin said. However, a defence lawyer pointed out that Shafia was out of the country on business at that time, returning home to Montreal on June 13, and there was no evidence to back up what Sahar said.
She confided in the social worker that her older brother was very controlling, pressuring her to wear a hijab and trying to handpick her friends. But she also spoke of her life ambitions, Benjamin said, including becoming a gynecologist, sparked by seeing the plight of women in Afghanistan, the Shafia’s country of origin.
The teacher who referred Sahar to Benjamin also testified about concerns she had about the girls’ home life.
At a meeting she had with Yahya, the “really angry” mother demanded to know how Sahar was behaving with boys at school, testified Claudia Deslauriers.
“She wanted to know if her daughter Sahar had kissed a boy and if her daughter was going out with a boy, if in fact she had a boyfriend,” she said in French through an interpreter. “I told her that no, she didn’t kiss any boy.”
Crown attorney Laurie Lacelle asked if that answer was true, and Deslauriers conceded it was not. She was worried about the consequences for Sahar at home if she admitted the girl had a boyfriend, Deslauriers said.
Yet another teacher testified Thursday that Sahar came to her, asking for advice on leaving home. Sahar asked Fathia Boualia if she moved out of the house and into an apartment, would she be able to take her 13-year-old sister Geeti with her. Boualia told her it wouldn’t be appropriate, and when Geeti found out, she verbally lashed out at the teacher and became “very angry,” Boualia testified.
“She was speaking out she said, ‘You know, that lady is not nice,”’ Boualia testified in French through an interpreter. “’She said to Sahar not to take me along with her,’ and that made her furious. She was not happy.”