After 12 years in Egypt, daughters come home with their Mistissini mother

A Mistissini woman’s years-long struggle to bring her daughters home from Egypt is finally over.

Candy Gunner landed in Montreal October 2 with Fatma, 16, and Aisha, 13 – leaving only eight hours before an Egyptian court forbid their departure.

This was the positive resolution to a 12-year nightmare as her daughters lived with their father in Ismailia, a city of 266,000 in northeastern Egypt. For the past year, Gunner has been in Egypt trying to bring her daughters home.

During that time, the girls had gone from their parents separating, to their father telling them their mother had passed away, to discovering that she was very much alive. In the end, they both decided to return to Canada with their mother.

In an interview with the James Bay Cree Communications Society (JBCCS), Gunner laid out the ordeal that she – and her daughters – endured over those 12 years.

She originally met her husband in Montreal. She decided she wanted to get married and have children with him after seeing that he came from a family-oriented, religious background. She wanted the best for Fatma and Aisha.

But things didn’t work out that way.

Soon after their second child was born, her husband was deported from Canada. They moved to Egypt together, where Gunner found a job as a teacher. Then she fell ill.

“I came back to Canada, and had to go back and forth to get treatment,” she explained to JBCCS. “The marriage started to fail, things didn’t work out.”

She last lived there full-time between 2006-2008.

Gunner tried to return with the girls, but her husband wanted to keep them – and said that they would grow up in a caring family and learn a culture of positive teachings from Islam. She believed him, and thought they would be in good hands.

However, Gunner lost all contact with the children for three years. She found out her husband had married another woman when the girls’ new stepmother reached out to her online. (Though Gunner and her husband haven’t divorced, polygamy for men is legal in Egypt.)

She also discovered that the girls’ father had told Fatma and Aisha that she had succumbed to disease – that they would never see their mother again.

But the girls were savvy, and found out online that their mother was still alive. Not only that, but they got in touch.

Gunner returned to Egypt and renewed her relationship with the girls. But the problems didn’t stop.

There were stories of physical abuse and neglect. Aisha had heart problems, but her father wasn’t providing appropriate care, according to Gunner.

Gunner wanted to explore her options. She talked to a lawyer. He said that Gunner had no rights over her children. She felt there was nothing she could do. Nor would she seek a divorce, since that might exclude any chance to visit her children.

In October 2016, Gunner again returned to see her daughters.

Fatma, the eldest, said she was fed up living with her father. “She asked, begged, to return to Canada. I said it would be difficult: if I lose the court case, I might lose them forever,” Gunner explained.

These were serious risks, but her mind was made up.

Wandering through the streets, Gunner didn’t know how to read the Arabic word for “lawyer”. Instead, she and her daughters went looking for storefronts that had the universal symbol of justice – the scale.

The first few lawyers she found didn’t speak any English at all. And even though her daughters could speak Arabic, they had no expertise in the legal jargon required to translate complicated proceedings.

Eventually she found one who spoke broken English.

At first, they tried to get the girls’ grandmother to return their passports. They went to court, but the grandmother didn’t appear. As a small victory, the courts granted the girls the right to seek Egyptian passports, but they abandoned that process after learning how difficult the process is there.

Instead, they decided to obtain Canadian travel documents. Because Fatma was already 16, she was able to get her own passport. Aisha’s case would prove more difficult.

In July, they hired John Hurley, a lawyer with the Montreal-based legal firm Gowling WLG. Hurley had initially been contacted by Grand Chief Abel Bosum, among others, who believed he might be able to help.

“I’ve never done work on this kind of case – it was quite unusual,” said Hurley. “The case was taking place in Egypt, and I don’t do family or immigration law.”

There were a number of legal challenges. Additionally, Gunner was concerned for the safety of her children and surveillance by the girls’ father. She also worried they could be abducted and taken to Saudi Arabia, where he was now living.

Gunner visited the Canadian embassy in Egypt, but was only provided a list of lawyers. “They didn’t help me,” Gunner said.

That changed when Grand Chief Bosum wrote to the Canadian ambassador asking for specific assistance. Suddenly, things were moving. They were now told they could apply for an emergency travel document from Global Affairs Canada, a government department that manages Canada’s diplomatic and consular relations.

They got the document. They had a ticket out of the country. But there was one final problem: the girls’ father’s family had applied to Egyptian courts to have them placed under a travel ban, meaning they couldn’t leave the country.

The court would issue a travel ban at 10 am, October 2. But Candy Gunner and her daughters had already left. Their flight home had departed at 2 am the same morning.

“I can’t believe it. I left hell, you know? It was like prison,” Fatma told the CBC after arriving at Montreal’s Trudeau Airport that same day.

Hurley explained that the girls would be free now to travel anywhere else in the world, but may have problems if they were to return to Egypt.

Her daughters were in good spirits when reached by JBCCS on October 14. Fatma said she was “more than happy. Emotional. I don’t know.”

The girls say they don’t remember ever having seen snow, but are excited about it.

Asked about their first impressions of Mistissini, the girls had a typical teenage response. “It’s boring ‘cause there’s only houses. We’re used to the city. It’s a little bit boring because there’s nobody out in the streets.”

For the girls, there are plans to register for school in Chibougamau.

Gunner reiterated her appreciation to everyone who supported her and her daughters. “Words can’t suffice how thankful and grateful we are. People I’ve never met before helped us – it’s amazing,” she told JBCCS.

“It’s really important my daughters feel love and welcomed, they’ve been neglected and abused and not cared for properly in Egypt. Showing them love and affection is the beginning of their healing journey, which we have a long road ahead of us – for all of us.”