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11 June 2016
Marianne Haslev Skånland:
Barnevernet – what must happen now?
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Speech held at Eidsvolls plass before Stortinget (the Norwegian parliament)
in Oslo, on 11 June 2016
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What must be done for Norway to achieve a child protection service which protects children?
We have come some way in that many more thousands of people, in many countries, now know how the Norwegian system operates to the detriment of children and parents.
What is the next thing we need?
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Let us think back to the last local elections. There was a trial project going in some municipalities: Young people down to 16 were allowed to vote.
Very well.
At the same time these 16-year-olds are not allowed to decide where to live? At least not if Barnevernet has confiscated them. Barnevernet holds them by force until they are 18.
So what must happen?
The government must announce something we can call an amnesty.
Under normal conditions an amnesty is something given to people who have broken the law. That is not the case here. But for children who long for home but are held captive in foster homes and institutions against their will, and without having done anything criminal, this is punishment. It is as if they and their parents are doing something criminal by wanting to be together.
So the abolishment of this duress is an amnesty.
The government must issue a clear order that all foster children who want to, can go home to their families freely, and will if necessary receive help to get home. Do not let foster persons try to pressure them, or impose conditions, or stop them taking their favourite teddy-bear with them, or keep back a pet of theirs in the foster home.
Instruct the police that Barnevernet no longer has the authority to call upon them to fetch children from their parents with force when the children themselves want to be with their parents. Regardless of age, every foster child who says it wants to go home, must have the right to go home. Without delay.
Those children who want to continue in foster homes, shall of course also have the freedom to do so, but not the freedom to speak on behalf of all those who want to go home.
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And then one more step:
Again we should think back. This time back to the time when the Soviet Union had begun practicing "glasnost’" (openness). In 1988, Gorbachev cancelled the yearly exams in the subject history! Down at school level.
Why?
When accurate information was available in the Soviet Union, it became clear that one could not continue with the incorrect version of history which a faulty ideology had led to. New textbooks were needed, and new teaching, from basics.
In the same way our country must put a stop to the present teaching of Barnevern going on in the colleges.
New students of child protection are due to start classes in the autumn. The same teaching is also dished out to kindergarten personnel, to law students, to the police and many other professions.
It must be stopped and the present text book literature done away with. Teaching personnel who promote today's understanding of how children are protected, must be prevented from doing so.
It is bad enough that it will take time to replace child protection workers who practice a harmful ideology. But we must at least prevent new classes of students being taught the same thing.
Quite new, different resources must be enlisted, new textbooks, new personnel to take students on for practice, so that we can end the harmful actions which today's Barnevern so often carry out.
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There is a whole series of things which must be done for families in Norway to become safe against obliteration by our own country's authorities. But the two things I have mentioned here are among the most important to get off the ground.
Thank you!
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References:
History Tests Canceled for Soviet Youngsters :
Decision, Affecting 53 Million, Will Provide Time to Correct Stalinist 'Lies,' Izvestia Says
Los Angeles Times, 11 June 1988
Moscow Summit: Unmaking History and Debating Rights;
Soviet Pupils Spared Exams While History Is Rewritten
New York Times, 31 May 1988
Mikhail Gorbachev's Glasnost
OnThisDay.com, no date
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