Family's 14-Month Wait For Baby Taken From Indian Couple By German Carers

The family members of an Indian baby girl have been protesting in front of the German embassy building in Delhi, seeking her repatriation to India. Ariha, the one-and-a-half year old baby girl of a Gujarat couple, has been living in foster care in Berlin for over 14 months.

The German authorities had taken Ariha under their care, alleging the parents sexually harassed their child. Her father had been working as a software engineer in the European nation on a work visa.

The couple said Ariha's grandmother hurt her by accident in September last year. When they took the baby to a hospital, the couple said the German authorities accused them of sex assault against the child and took her away from their care.

The couple said the criminal investigation was closed without charges in February, but they still haven't got their daughter back.

In more trouble for the parents, the Berlin Child Services filed a civil custody case for the parental rights to be terminated. This case will take two-three years and a trial date has still not been set, the couple said.

The parents are fighting the case in Germany, but fear that the Child Services are dragging it to take advantage of the "continuity principle" of child law, under which if a child has spent a significant time with the state-appointed carer, it is said to be settled there and should not be shifted back to the parents, even if they are found to be fit.

"The German child services are completely insensitive to the baby's cultural and religious identity, insisting on a meat diet for her though she comes from an observant Jain family," a family member said.

"They say they plan to have her adopted to a German family. This is a violation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child to which both India and Germany are parties," the family member said.

The parents have asked the government for help to repatriate the baby to India. They have agreed, if needed, to keep the baby with their maternal grandmother or a Jain family, or under the care and responsibility of Indian child welfare authorities.

Similar cases of Indian parents fighting legal battles to take back their children from government carers abroad have been reported in the past too, from Norway to the US.