There is an unfolding tragedy in Norway where a five-year-old Indian child has been forcibly taken away from his parents, one of whom is an Indian citizen, by Barnevernet, the Norwegian Child Protection Agency (CPA). Fortunately, this has led to a welcome, swift response from the Government of India, specifically the Minister for External Affairs, Sushma Swaraj. India's Ambassador to Norway has been asked by the minister to take up the issue with the Norwegian authorities and provide help to the family. According to reports, the father of the child is a leading member of the BJP's overseas organisation. In Delhi, BJP leader Vijay Jolly, contacted by the traumatized family, has represented the case to the Norwegian authorities in India and is following up on the issue to reunite the child with his family.
Many of us reading of the case in the papers have written to the minister to directly speak to her counterpart in Norway and also at the highest level. It will be more effective in bringing urgency to the issue rather than relying on the usual bureaucratic procedures. This is because of our past experience in dealing with the officials in the CPA in Norway, on the Bhattacharya children case, which led us to believe that the Child Protection Agency in that country should be more appropriately termed the Child Snatching Agency (CSA) and referred to as such.
In 2011, the Bhattacharya children were snatched away from their parents on somewhat similar grounds. We came to know of the case much after it had taken place. By that time, the relevant court in Stavanger had already ruled in favour of the snatchers, the siblings aged one and three had been separated and sent to different foster homes, and the Bhattacharyas were informed that they could not see their children till they had reached the age of 18. It took another six months of our struggle to get the children out of foster care and back to India in mid-2012. The children are now living happily in the care of their mother, a mother who the CSA had publicly defamed and declared "unfit" as a parent.
At that time, after the intervention of the All India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA) and other activists, prominently Suranya Aiyar, and also by Members of Parliament, the then External Affairs Minister Shri S.N Krishna spoke directly to his Norwegian counterpart about restoring the children to their parents or at least sending them back to India to the custody of their extended family. A special envoy was appointed to follow up on the case. A
press report at the time states "Madhusudhan Ganapathi, secretary (west) in the Ministry of External Affairs, was rushed to Norway as a special envoy and met Norwegian foreign minister Jonas Gahr Store to find an expeditious and amicable solution to the custody row of Aishwarya (1) and Abhigyan (3) who were taken away by child welfare officials in Norway and placed in foster care. The official Spokesperson in the MEA Syed Akbaruddin, said in a tweet. 'The Indian special envoy has had positive discussions with the Norwegian foreign minister in Oslo', He also tweeted 'Special Envoy to meet Norway's Minister of Children, Equality And Social Inclusion Audun Lysbakken later.'" This was followed up by a direct mention of the case by Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh to the then Prime Minister of Norway.
In the present case, Minister Sushma Swaraj
tweeted "I refuse to accept that foster parents can take better care of the child than his natural parents. The foster parents are totally ignorant of Indian culture and food habits." Four years ago, an official release by the Ministry in the Bhattacharya case had said "The Indian Embassy reiterated the concerns of the government of India to the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs that the children were being deprived of the undoubted benefits of being brought up in their own ethnic, religious cultural and linguistic milieu." The point is that as far as the Norwegian CSA authorities are concerned, this is business as usual. There has been absolutely no change in their approach in the last four years.
The ominous statement in response to the expressed official concern of the Minister that "the case will be dealt with according to laws in Norway" is also the same as it was then.
In fact, the CSA of Norway acts as a law unto itself. Its record of child snatching, its utterly arbitrary and subjective assessments of parents, its opaque methods of functioning in the name of confidentiality and its conflict of interest in the financial sphere have been a matter of protest in Norway, in many countries such as Russia, Czechoslovakia, Turkey, whose citizens have been similarly affected. The role of the CSA in violation of human rights has been a subject matter of debate and condemnation in the European Union Parliament.
Look at the facts brought out by MPs, journalists and activists in Norway. Jan Simonsen, a former MP in Norway,
stated that according to the records of the Ministry of Children, Youth and Family Affairs, in the year 2014, 1,665 children were taken forcibly from their parents involuntarily" - that is, on an average, three to four children a day. While Norwegian citizens were also affected, children of foreigners were disproportionately represented in the number of children taken away. Tomas Zdechovsky, an MP in the EU, brought up the
case of a Czech woman who was deprived of her two sons and, for four years, has been not allowed to meet them. The children's grandparents were also banned from meeting them on grounds that it will lead to "stress" for the children. In view of several other such cases, the issue is now on the agenda of one of the legal committee working groups.
Norwegian academic Professor Marianne Skanland, who has been tracking the activities of the CSA, has brought out startling
data on the conflict of interest between the welfare of the child and the financial benefits for CSA and its network of foster homes. According to her, a foster family is paid around 50,000 euros per child per year apart from leave benefits and paid holidays. A social worker who evaluates the "fitness" of biological parents who have been reported to the CSA can also apply to be a foster parent, which is a clear area of conflict of interest. The method of "reporting" against parents is also absolutely opaque and even anonymous complaints, which could be motivated by other considerations including racism and xenophobia, are entertained by the CSA. According to Simonsen, the 20 most frequent reasons listed by the Directorate of the CYF Ministry in Norway include "the child looks eagerly at strangers and smiles which means that it is not attached to its mother"; "the baby turns its face the wrong way when the father washes it"; "grandmother visiting children wants to embrace them and it had to be stopped as it will create an unwanted attachment."
Such bizarre "reasoning" and cruel inhumane actions as those consistently followed by the agencies in Norway undermine the global struggle to ensure country and local-based child protection services which must include prevention of familial abuse against children including sexual abuse.
Here in India, we have been demanding the establishment of a range of services which provide protection to children who are victims of family abuse. Family abuse is real and increasing. The number of cases of child sexual abuse is horrifying as is its increasing trend. But institutionalising a child, or sending the child away to strangers as a first resort as is the practice in Norway, does untold damage to the child.
On the other hand, there are those who believe that what happens within the family is sacrosanct and cannot and should not be challenged. There are many versions of the "ideal" family, which include the subordinate wife, the prevalence of son preference, daughter dispreference cultures and practices and so on. Such an approach is clearly not in the interests of the child or indeed of other members of the family. Women's organisations have been struggling to develop a framework - legal, social and cultural - which democratizes the patriarchal family and ensures protection to its subordinated members.
It is also true that in the current framework of economic policies determined by "less Government" translated into savage cuts in social welfare projects and budgetary allocations to develop services for the protection of children have been badly hit. In that sense, the allocation of funds by the Government of Norway for social welfare services has always been seen as a positive initiative in an era of neo-liberal policies sweeping away all these measures in the rest of Europe. But what is questionable lies in the utterly authoritarian nature of the institution in Norway running these services and the approach to child care. In spite of the critical evidence against it, in spite of the protests, it continues its practices which are a clear violation of child rights, human rights.
In such a situation, a warning must be issued to all Indian citizens by the Indian Embassy in Norway that they should know that they are at risk of their children being snatched away. The embassy must also develop a protocol in addressing and dealing with all these cases. The timing of the intervention is often critical to getting the children back. Thirdly, in the present case, while Minister Sushma Swaraj is to be congratulated for her quick response, as mentioned earlier, further steps will have to be taken at the official level.
These are cases beyond daily politics. The government must be given all support to bring the child back home to the loving embrace of his parents. When I visit the Bhattacharya family and see the smiles on the children's faces, I think to myself, but for the united actions across party lines at that time, the fate of these children was sealed.
Brinda Karat is a Politburo member of the CPI(M) and a former Member of the Rajya Sabha.Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of NDTV and NDTV does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.