Drugs and Children > After physically and sexually abusing her at 5, Dad drugs and traffics her for a year at 14

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Drugs and children do not mix under any circumstances. Carissa's father was most certainly under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol when he tried to kill her and when he trafficked her. 

We don't know about the foster homes she was sent to, whether they were using drugs/alcohol, or whether they were First Nations homes, but they were, apparently abusive. It happens all the time, but it should never happen that a child is placed in the care of someone who will abuse them.

Falling through the cracks

Carissa Chaput was exploited while in Manitoba’s child welfare system. Advocates say more needs to be done to protect Indigenous kids like her

Carissa Chaput says after years of being abused and exploited while in Manitoba's child welfare system, she never imagined she would make it to her high school graduation.

Prabhjot Singh Lotey/CBC

By Brittany Greenslade

Jun. 26, 2023

WARNING: This story contains distressing details.

Standing in her emerald green gown with a smile on her face, Carissa Chaput felt beautiful — and after years of abuse, she couldn’t believe she was a few days away from crossing the stage at her high school graduation.

“It feels really good, because I never thought I was going to graduate,” she said. “I thought I was going to be dead.”

Chaput, 19, said her father started abusing her when she was just five years old.

“The first time he actually tried killing me, tried stomping on my neck,” she said. “He would drag me around by my hair, beat me up. [There was also] some sexual abuse.”

She said her mother tried the best she could, but they had a challenging relationship. By the time she was 11, Chaput was moved into foster care — where she said she was sexually abused and starved in homes where she was supposed to be protected by child and family services.

She often ran away. At times it was so bad she would call her dad, because she thought she might be safer with him.

Instead, he ended up bringing her to a house on Winnipeg’s Salter Street — where she said she was drugged, trafficked and sold by others to support their drug habit.

With every day, week and month that went by in that house, she started to lose hope that anyone was looking for her.

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