Norway authorities take away Indian couple's kids, say feeding with hands wrong

[BollyThis]

Norway authorities take away Indian couple's kids, say feeding with hands wrong

 

New Delhi:  Anurup and Sagarika Bhattacharya - an Indian couple from Kolkata are living a nightmare in Norway. Their children - a three-year-old son and one-year-old daughter - were taken away from them by Norway's child protective services and placed in foster care eight months ago.

The drastic measure was taken because, according to the child protective services, the couple were not bringing the children up properly. What did they do wrong? They fed the children with their hands and the infants slept in the same bed as the parents.


Read more at: http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/indian-couples-norway-nightmare-kids-taken-away-for-feeding-with-hands-167660?pfrom=home-topstories&cp

[Manturo]

But didn't one of the commentators clarify some missing info:

http://social.ndtv.com/groups.php?id=232314&comment-permalink=608558Scott Sørensen 6 hours ago
I am norwegian, and this have not been written about in any of the major norwegian newspapers for some reason. I also believe there got to be another reason than this. I slept in the same bed as my parents sometimes when i was a child and i think every norwegian have done it several times during their childhood. Hand feeding a baby is culturally okay in norway too. I was usually hand fed unless a spoon was needed to get the food on the plate to my mouth without making a mess. Child protective services aren't allowed to publicly say why they took the child too keep its privacy so this story is from the parents perspective. There is also no law saying you cant hand feed your children and there is no law saying you cant sleep in the same bed as you parents. These practices are even culturally accepted in norway.

There has to be more to this story than what has been reported.

Also, remember that Scandinavian countries actually have laws on the books that you can't physically beat your kids. If the child in school admitted to being physically disciplined, teachers are required by law to report it to the child welfare authorities.

[Deewani_Aurat]

There has to be more to this story than what has been reported.

Also, remember that Scandinavian countries actually have laws on the books that you can't physically beat your kids. If the child in school admitted to being physically disciplined, teachers are required by law to report it to the child welfare authorities.

I agree. I don't believe for a second they put the kids under protective custody for eating with their hands 

I'm sure the truth will come out soon enough what the true reason was.  Like you said Manturo, they can't "legally" take them away for that reason because there is no law against it.  Seems like to me NDTV poor journalism again, not waiting for the real story to come out and making a major news article about hearsay.

[BollyThis]

NDTV is not known to verify its story. Its a tabloid TV for the far left in India.. so yeah..we need to take what they say with a grain of salt.

[GabberSingh]

New Delhi: Anurup and Sagarika Bhattacharya - an Indian couple from Kolkata are living a nightmare in Norway. Their children - a three-year-old son and one-year-old daughter - were taken away from them by Norway's child protective services and placed in foster care eight months ago.

The drastic measure was taken because, according to the child protective services, the couple were not bringing the children up properly. What did they do wrong? They fed the children with their hands and the infants slept in the same bed as the parents.

http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/no...s-wrong-167660

[filmcrazy]

Their children - a What did they do wrong? They fed the children with their hands and the infants slept in the same bed as the parents.

http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/no...s-wrong-167660

 I don't know much about the Norway system but Child Protection usually steps in when there are instances of abuse and neglect. They may have tried to force the child to eat. This happened to a couple in Canada. The mom was feeding the child in a mall and she tried to forcibly feed the child. Someone called and reported it to the Child Protection Services and they took the kid right away. So, I wonder if there is more to this story than what ndtv is reporting.

[Manturo]

This story was already posted: http://www.bollywhat-forum.com/index.php?topic=34334.msg498015#msg498015

Keep in mind that child protection services cannot comment on the nature of the charges to the press due to confidentiality laws. And Norway, like most Scandinavian countries, have outlawed corporal punishment towards children. It could have been something as simple as the parent slapping the child on their leg and someone called the social services.

[BollyThis]

Nothing here listed  justifies taking their kids away

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2829408.ece?homepage=true

 

[Manturo]

What got them the in trouble was this:

The mother had admitted to slapping the son at one point, but the Child Welfare Service noted that this was something she had never done again after she became aware that it was illegal under Norwegian law.

Once you do that, you are forever on the poo-poo list of ANY western child welfare agency, yes, even here in USA.

It's the overkill because of the fear of child death cases.

[BollyThis]

http://www.tnp.no/norway/panorama/2704-an-unfinished-debate-on-barnevernet

"The Norwegian child welfare service is Breivik," they cried.

The protests came after Russian media have recently run a series of issues about how more and more Russian women living in Norway are deprived of their children. Especially two cases on Russian media were strong enough to mobilize the protestors. One of these news stories featured a Russian citizen, who lives in Norway, whose name is Maya Kasayeva. Her shocking staments took many newspapers' front pages: "During the court hearings, the judge told me: 'We give you residence permit, and you give us your son.' I refused, and then the repressions started."

[BollyThis]

One of the comments

Quote

"This is disgusting over reach of state power over ordinary people. A state agency has justify its staffing and financial requirements and Norwegian citizens need paycheck, so they collaborate to LEGALLY KIDNAP children from vulnerable immigrants. In civilized countries, this is called racketeering.
The worst part is that the Norwegian Govt decides to separate for 18 years, the children and parents of non-Norwegian citizen who happen to in Norway on a temporary visa. Now the Norwegian authorities are applying a permanent visa for the children without consent from the children or parents to permanently separate them. This is STATE SPONSORED KIDNAPPING. Norway - You should be ashamed of yourself.
In the USA, they always talk about how USA is turning into Europe. I never understood until now. "

[filmcrazy]

A lot of immigrants in Norway are complaining about it. You can find a lot of info on this subject if you google it. Apparently Russian immigrants are also complaining about it. The Indian couple in this case are not described as abusive parents in the news articles. Maybe something sinister is going on here.

[James]

Norway 'unable to act on India children' in custody row

India's foreign minister says Norway is unable to do anything about the Indian children taken from their parents and put into foster care because a court case is on in that country.

SM Krishna said "a judicial process is on and it is not possible for the executive to make a move".
[...]

Earlier, a child welfare agency in Norway said that custody of children should be awarded to their uncle.

This would allow them to return to India, Stavanger Child Welfare Service said in a statement.

A local court will make the final decision in March, the statement said.

[...]
The parents, Anurup and Sagarika Bhattacharya, said there were "cultural differences" the authorities took exception to, including sleeping with the children and feeding them by hand.

The child welfare agency has denied this, saying it only intervened when the children's safety was at risk.
[...]

I wonder if it is a matter of corporal punishment or something that set off the Norway authorities. If so, perhaps it's not just immigrants who need some cultural sensitivity training... These rules should be very explicitly stated to all immigrants and folk coming in on visas for any purpose.

[BollyThis]

http://www.familiestiftelsen.no/node/16534



Legitimacy

(
Barnevernet made the whole set of episodic observations by being
present in the home of the parents. They gained entry in the pretext of
providing «help» to the parents with their minor boy, mother's pregnancy
and their situation in general. The «help» was not offered through a
written letter nor were the terms of this «help» disclosed. It would be a
reasonable expectation that the «help» would be confined to solving the
challenges being faced by family and personal data collected during
such visitation would not be used for any other purpose.

(9)
Given that, as we explore later in this article, there was very little
«help» on the aspects that the family faced problem, it appears to be
only an excuse to clandestinely collect personal data to build a case
for seizing custody. It amounts to blatant invasion of individual
privacy and a State sponsored mechanism to influence and collect
children (as per the data from SSB, Norway, almost one fifth of children
born in Norway receive some form of child care measures). Barnevernet
fails to live up to the requirements set forth in Article 12 of the
United Nations Declaration of Human Rights (UNDHR) that «No one shall be
subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or
correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation».

(10)
The minors have been resident in Norway because of their Indian
biological Father’s work. In normal circumstances they would be
considered illegal immigrants if they were not to co-terminate their
stay in Norway along with their Father’s stay. These children do not
enjoy all the State privileges that Norwegian minor citizens enjoy
either directly or indirectly in the form of State support to parents.
How could a State award itself the right to decide on a transient
skilled worker’s whole life based on a couple of years’ of Work visa? It
is just imbalanced.




NRK a leading channel in Norway
reports about Barnevernet’s organization of a clandestine operation:
smuggling back a Turkish child placed in a Norwegian foster home. The
child had been sent to a vacation with his foster parents to Turkey.
While in Turkey the Turkish court had issued an order placing a ban on
exit of the child. Barnevernet then sponsored a multi-million Kroner
operation to smuggle the child back. Leave aside the legal and ethical
aspects of the matter, the operation was apparently kept secret even
from the Norwegian Ministry of External Affairs. The Barnevernet appear
to be first among equals.

[BollyThis]

What boggles my mind is this.

They have taken the two children and split them into two foster families and sentenced these kids to 18 years to be away from their parents.

If the parents had done any harm to these kids (Actually they didn't but some think that Norway can do no harm) why are these parents not arrested? IF the kids had to be removed from their parents for 18 years, they must have done something horrible... so why not arrest them for their horror and try them? They were not charged with anything, yet their kids were taken from them?

Aparently this logic alludes many Norway supporters.

[indigal]

http://www.thehindu.com/news/article2967594.ece

A sri-lankan couple face a similar situation. Guess there is no room for multiculturalism.

[BollyThis]

The impression I get is, this is a culture where a man and woman don't have to marry but sleep with one man for a year and another couple of years with yet another and so on for 15 years and father 4 or 5 kids from different men and in the process  the state pays for everything..then the state owns the children. A culture where children are bred for the state and the state is an entity that dictates to the breeders of the children of the state how and what they ought to do at a very micro level.

The concept of family is destroyed and made irrelevant. so the society does not care who raises whose kids.

It sure takes a village to raise these kids.

[Dil Bert]

A sri-lankan couple face a similar situation. Guess there is no room for multiculturalism.

OTOH, now that there are reports this isn't an isolated incident it might prompt some real investigation/changes.

[BollyThis]

A few days ago, when a congressie minister flew to Norway to take it up with the Norway govt, almost all the desi angressie newspaper were so eager to print the front page news that issue is solved, like they were all apologists for the Norwegian gestapo like organization that seems to be more powerful than the foreign ministry.  These blokes who work for Indian english dailies are real Uncle Toms IMO.

From what I am getting to understand is that this organization is not going to give in. These kids are not coming back anytime soon.

[indigal]

Looks like all the stress has taken its toll on this couple and this is really going to complicate things for them.
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article3013784.ece?homepage=true

[James]

Norway to hand over Indian children in custody row

A child welfare agency in Norway has said it will hand over two Indian children taken into foster care 10 months ago to their uncle.

The Child Welfare Service (CWS) said a Stavanger District Court would make the final decision on 17 April.
[...]