After eight new complaints, pedophile ‘Eskimo father’ is prosecuted again in Canada: “Not a single child has escaped him”

A much younger Erik Dejaeger, who is slumped in the armchair in a gray T-shirt. With a little boy on his lap. Presumably one of his many victims. The image went around the world when the large-scale abuse of the former Flemish father came to light.

Dejaeger grew up in Roeselare, but moved to Canada as a missionary in the 1970s and applied for Canadian nationality there seven years later. He lived in Igloolik – a village of barely a thousand inhabitants – with an Inuit community, the Eskimos in Canada and Greenland. There he is said to have sexually abused dozens of children between 1978 and 1982. Dejaeger was convicted for the first time in 1989. He was then sentenced to five years in prison for ten counts of child abuse. But when he was released in 1992, he fled back to our country. He had learned that a new, large-scale investigation had been started against him.

READ ALSO. Belgian ex-father (75) was convicted of dozens of child abuse offenses in Canada, but is released after 11 years: “Wolf in the robes of a missionary”

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Undisturbed in Belgium

Dejaeger managed to stay in Belgium undisturbed for fifteen years. He stayed with various communities of the Oblate fathers, with his last address being with the fathers in Blanden in Flemish Brabant.

After Interpol tracked him down, he was deported from our country to Canada in 2011. Four years later, in 2015, he appeared in court in Nunavut, Canada. There he was sentenced to 19 years in prison for 32 counts of child abuse.

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Strict conditions

The former father served eleven years of his prison sentence, but was released in 2022 under strict conditions. His freedom did not last long, because Erik Dejaeger was arrested again last summer. New information today shows that eight other facts have emerged after his previous conviction. It concerns eight people who decided to file a complaint for abuse between 1978 and 1982 in Nunavut.

The former father served eleven years of his prison sentence, but was released in 2022 under strict conditions

“These are people who only later found the courage to dare to speak out,” says Lieve Halsberghe, who has been caring for Erik Dejaeger’s victims for years. “The Canadian Igloolik is just a small village. I fear that not a single child has escaped Erik Dejaeger. These facts date back a long time ago, but in Canada there is no statute of limitations for abuse. So all these victims are also entitled to justice.”

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Free on bail

A court in Canada has now ruled that Erik Dejaeger can be released on bail under strict conditions pending his retrial. He must stay at the Henry Traill Community Correctional Center in Kingston, a community center where he is supervised day in and day out. He is allowed to leave the facility during the day, but is under a curfew and is not allowed to visit public parks or swimming pools where young people may be.

READ ALSO. THE VOICES OF ASSISEN. “The children were safe with him, they thought. He was a priest, wasn’t he?”

In any case, he will never return to the Oblate Fathers where he stayed in our country. “We have nothing to do with him anymore,” responds a missionary father. “He still writes us a note sometimes, but we have virtually no contact with him anymore. We know that new facts have emerged. But we don’t know much about that. I think he denies those facts.”

Dejaeger will appear in court again on June 10. A date for his retrial will then be set.