A St. Albert woman has been honoured this week for her tireless efforts to defend children’s rights.
Velvet Martin was one of five people to receive a human rights award from the John Humphrey Centre for Peace and Human Rights Wednesday.
Held at the ATB Financial Arts Barn in Edmonton before about 90 people, the awards were the capstone of the third annual Gall Conference on Human Rights (named after Gerald Gall, the renowned St. Albert constitutional law scholar).
Talks about human rights can get really depressing, says Renée Vaugeois, executive director of the John Humphrey Centre. The Centre started these awards eight years ago to celebrate the unsung heroes of human rights in the Edmonton region.
Martin is best known for Samantha’s Law, a 2007 amendment to the Alberta Family Support for Children with Disabilities Act she helped create that allows parents to get health care services for disabled children without surrendering those kids to foster care.
Martin said that when her daughter, Samantha, was born in 1993 and diagnosed with the rare genetic disorder tetrasomy 18p, social workers told her that the province would not give Samantha the medical support she needed unless she was put into foster care.
Samantha died of a heart attack at age 13 after years of neglect and abuse from her foster parents and social worker.
“I wanted my daughter’s legacy to mean something,” Martin said, so she lobbied hard for the aforementioned amendment. She also became spokesperson for Protecting Canadian Children, a support group for parents affected by the child welfare system, and administrator for Tetrasomy 18p Canada, a group that promotes awareness of that disease.
She also fought against a provincial law that prevents anyone, even parents, from naming children who die in foster care, and won a court challenge for the right to speak publicly about Samantha.
“I was threatened with lawsuits. I was threatened with criminal charges for speaking the truth,” she said.
The province agreed to partially lift that ban earlier this year.
Martin is a devoted mother who always puts others first, said awards committee member Roxanne Ulanicki, reading Martin’s citation Wednesday.
“She has never given up fighting to find new ways to help the most vulnerable children and helpless citizens in our community and across Canada.”
Martin said Alberta is the only province in Canada with legislation like Samantha’s Law, and that she’s getting calls from around the world to introduce it in other places. Her next goal is to roll it out across the nation.
Alberta still has some 143,000 children who live in poverty despite this province’s wealth, and has seen roughly 767 children die in the child welfare system since 1999, Martin said.
Martin called on the province to take money out of the foster care system and put it toward helping people be better parents, noting that many struggle with addictions and the aftermath of the residential school system.
“We need to go back to being more humane, basically.”
Martin urged the crowd to speak out about harm to others no matter what guise of righteousness its perpetrators may wear.
“To all who carry this message forward: no more silence.”
Other winners included transgender advocate Marni Panas, youth advocate Brianna Olson, Mohamed El Daly, director of outreach at the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta, and Edmonton Coun. Amarjeet Sohi.
Winners received a painting called “The World We Create” designed by renowned First Nations artist Aaron Paquette.
