Three teenage Lev Tahor girls have been hospitalized after protesting actions by the Children’s Aid Society with a hunger strike, a sect spokesperson says.
The spokesperson tells CTV News that the three teens are receiving medical attention at SickKids Hospital in Toronto.
In an email to CTV News Monday, Miriam Helbrans, a member of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect, said a 16-year-old and a 14-year-old have been on a hunger strike since Saturday afternoon.
The trio are protesting actions taken by CAS workers that are preventing them from being with their parents.
The three were part of a group of six children that were placed in the care of child services, after Lev Tahor members landed at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport Saturday night from Trinidad and Tobago.
A decision from Justice Stephen Fuerth on Feb. 3, ordered 14 children from the sect back to Quebec child services. As part of the decision, the children were ordered to remain with their families and couldn’t leave Chatham-Kent until an appeal was made.
Approximately 40 families with the Jewish group left Ste-Agathe-des-Monts, Que., and relocated to Chatham in November after a Quebec court ordered the 14 children into foster care.
