Bringing Becky back: N.B. mother fighting to bring toddler home from Africa

Cross-border struggles for N.B. woman CTV’s Jonathan MacInnis has the story of a New Brunswick mother’s struggle to bring her two-year-old from Africa to Canada.

A New Brunswick mother is in an ongoing fight to bring her two-year-old adopted daughter back from a third-world country.

In 2014, Rebecca Campbell says she met a baby girl who had been abandoned to social welfare in her home country of Sierre Leone.

“My hopes were to bring the baby back to Canada. I named her Becky because she's special to me – that's my name,” said Campbell.

There is no Canadian embassy in Sierra Leone, so Campbell travelled to Senegal where locals working in the Canadian office insisted she had to fill out adult immigration forms for her adopted daughter.

With her daughter having no travel history and only being a child, the application was rejected.

Campbell says allowing Becky to grow up in Sierre Leone isn’t an option.

“A child like her would … live in the streets,” said Campbell. “Become a prostitute, or you beg in the streets.”

Campbell says she and her son, Suliaman, were immigrating from Sierra Leone to Canada on Sept. 11, 2001. Her flight from Brussels to Montreal had to turn around and land.

“When he finally landed we got to see on TV what was going on, and that's the day the whole world changed,” said Campbell.

Rebecca and Suliaman eventually made it to Canada and settled in Moncton.

She married her husband, Bayne, in 2008, and enrolled in university to become a nurse.

Remembering her situation growing up in Sierra Leone, Campbell started collecting used clothing, and once a year would ship a container in Africa, paying $5,000 US out of her own pocket.

She often travels back to her homeland to help distribute the clothes and work in the local hospital.

“I lived it myself. There was a time I didn't have clothes. I had to beg from people,” said Campbell.

Campbell has started the three-step immigration process again, with hopes of bringing her daughter home soon.

“I call Canada my promise land,” said Campbell. “Most Canadians don't know how much they have, and I know Canada won't fail me.”

Not knowing when Becky was born, Campbell was allowed to choose her birthday. She chose Canada Day.

Campbell hopes to soon celebrate both birthdays together as a family.

“I love the baby as my own,” said Campbell. “She has my name so I want her to have a family and a life.”

With files from CTV Atlantic’s Jonathan MacInnis.