VANCOUVER (CP) - The children of Sons of Freedom Doukhobors have launched a lawsuit against the B.C. government over their removal from their homes in the 1950s.
"They locked these children up in a prison-like environment and mistreated them and seriously impaired their normal childhood development," lawyer Drew Schroeder said Wednesday. He said the action is being filed in B.C. Supreme Court on behalf of the 49 after the government failed to respond to recommendations of the provincial ombudsman in a report two years ago.
The Sons of Freedom Doukhobors are a traditionalist sect of Doukhobor followers who came to Canada from Russia at the turn of the century.
They became known for their use of nudism and arson as forms of protest. Sons of Freedom followers shed their clothes and burn buildings as signs of their abhorrence of material goods.
The sect now makes up a tiny segment of the Doukhobor community in British Columbia. Most former members now belong either to the Orthodox group, centred in Grand Forks, or the smaller Reformed group at Krestova.
Ombudsman Dulcie McCallum found 150 children were subjected to physical and psychological maltreatment after they were placed in a former tuberculosis sanitorium at New Denver in southeastern B.C.
She called on the province to make a public apology and provide counselling, in addition to paying proper compensation.
"None of those recommendations has been acted on," Schroeder said.
The apprehension and confinement of the Sons of Freedom children went on from 1953 to 1959.
"They really have all lived adult lives of isolation and despair. The primary purpose for these people in the lawsuit is really to, after all these year, come out of hiding," the lawyer said.