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25 – 26 April 2015
Norway to implement the Hague convention on child abduction –
an expected development, and very unfortunate for families targeted by the child protection authorities
by Marianne Haslev Skånland
25 April 2015
The Norwegian government now wants Norway to ratify / implement the Hague convention on child abduction.
Økt beskyttelse av barn (Increased protection of children)
Regjeringen (the Government), 17 April 2015
Most people only think of this convention as relevant when one parent takes the children away from the other parent and moves abroad with them. And this is the way the issue is presented, e.g in this account from the government on 29 August 2013:
To/from a Contracting state - the Hague Convention
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For people whom the child protective service (CPS) attack, however, the situation is even worse than for a parent in custody disputes with the other parent: The children are taken away by the CPS from both parents and from all their family. If parents succeed in leaving Norway with their children after the CPS has a binding decision of taking over custody, the CPS have the legal rights to the children and will pursue them abroad and demand them back to institutional or foster home care.
There have already been several cases where Norwegian authorities try to effect this, by making a formal demand to the foreign authorities concerned, even by carrying through a court case in the other country.
See especially this case from 2011 of a Polish family, in which Norwegian CPS and the state's legal establishment show their way of thinking very clearly:
Judgment in Poland: a nine-year-old girl NOT to be extradited to Norway
December 2014
Compare also:
How Norway will undermine Czech intentions for the family, for the protection of children, and for human rights
February 2015
With the Hague convention the position of the Norwegian CPS and other authorities will be even stronger, and there is no doubt whatsoever that they will spend unlimited time and resources to have returned to Norway every child whom the CPS want in their clutches. Other countries who try to resist Norway's inhuman destruction of children's ties with their families, will be increasingly helpless to protect the children and their parents from it. What Norway declares to be better protection of children is the opposite, cf the incredibly dark statistics of the results of foster care and the large number of children who try to escape from it and are hunted down by the CPS and the police.
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The focus on foster care is indeed clear in the government's last proposal. The Norwegian government turns the CPS cases of foreign children in Norway, cases which have received prominent publicity abroad lately, and in which the authorities of the families' home countries have tried to help them against Norwegian CPS, into a question of "finding solutions" in the extra demanding task of "protecting these children" because the children are said to "have attachment" to – more than one country:
"Departementene og norske utenriksstasjoner har de siste årene hatt økende pågang fra utenlandske myndigheter og privatpersoner i enkeltsaker om barn i Norge. Norske myndighetere blir ofte bedt om å gripe inn i sakene eller tilrettelegge for å finne løsninger, blant annet i barnevernsaker på tvers av landegrenser.
Stadig flere barn har tilknytning til flere land. Et barn kan være statsborger i én stat, bo i en annen og oppholde seg i en tredje. Barn med tilhørighet til flere land, kan være mer utsatt og det kan være ekstra krevende å ivareta og beskytte disse barna."
(The government departments and Norwegian representation abroad have these last few years faced an influx of foreign authorities and private persons in single cases regarding children in Norway. Norwegian authorities are often asked to intervene in the cases or arrange for the finding of solutions, e.g in child protection cases across the countries' borders.
An increasing number of children have ties to several countries. A child may be a citizen of one country, live in another and be staying in a third. Children belonging to several countries can be more exposed and it can be extra demanding to take care of and protect these children.)
Here, as elsewhere in Norwegian politically correct presentation of the realities, a child's parents – the vitally central people for a child's happiness – are totally absent from Norwegian ideology.
The last two out of three points announced by the government to be important advantages of implementing the Hague Convention concern CPS matters directly, not custody disputes between parents. Point 2 declares:
"At det kan treffes vedtak om omsorgsovertakelse når et barn har vanlig bosted i Norge, selv om barnet oppholder seg i utlandet. Forslaget kan hindre at foreldre unndrar seg et barnevernvedtak ved å reise fra Norge."
(That decisions can be made of the taking into public care when a child is normally resident in Norway, even if the child is abroad. The proposal can prevent parents from avoiding a child protection decision by leaving Norway.)
The same is repeated in an article, with the same title as the government's announcement, by the Minister of Children, Equality and Social Inclusion Solveig Horne:
Økt beskyttelse av barn
Stavanger Aftenblad, 23 April 2015
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When, at the same time, legislation will be processed making it a criminal offense even to take one's child out of Norway when the CPS have made an interim, emergency decision, i.e before the decision has been confirmed by any court or even by the County Committee (cf Here it comes – the parliamentary proposal of criminalising taking children back from acute / temporary placement away from the family), then people should not even need any writing on the wall to assess the situation.
In the case of Eva Michaláková and her two children, Norwegian CPS will not let the children out of their clutches and the Norwegian state flatly refuses to order the children released and sent back to the Czech Republic, to their mother or other relatives:
Thread about the case:
Czech family seriously damaged by Norwegian child protection service (CPS)
December 2014 –
Exactly the same is happening in the case of the Lithuanian boy Gabrielius:
Thread about the case:
Lithuanian boy? – unclear news reports
January 2015 –
Norway's government of course has the power and the responsibility to instruct their own agency, the CPS, but pretends it has no such responsibility or power. The government has certainly instructed its embassies, however, since the coming ratification of the Hague convention is made a central issue whenever these embassies come up with statements intended to defend Norway's conduct in child protection cases and counter the criticism. Thus, Norway's embassy in Prague, on the 23 January 2015 writes on its website, in an article Child welfare in Norway, purporting to explain Norwegian child protection to the Czechs:
"Norway is, however, in the process of ratifying The Hague 1996 Convention. The child welfare services of Norway will then be able to cooperate much more closely than today in child welfare cases that involve children with links to other countries that are parties to The Hague 1996 Convention."
Why don't Czech and Lithuanian citizens ask Norwegian authorities or their representatives: What exactly will improve when Norway ratifies / implements the Hague convention? Who will be helped by it, in what way and why? Norway is the party refusing to cooperate with Lithuanians and Czechs, although they could of course do so any day. So why will the Hague convention suddenly make so much more possible that which is possible all the time: that Norway honours family love and ordinary decency and lets the Czech Republic and Lithuania see to it that the children are cared for?
Ostensibly, what the Norwegian government means to suggest by making encouraging noises about the Hague convention, is that all will be well for the children when Norwegian CPS has a freer hand to cooperate in the way they, on the basis of their great competence, find best. In reality the CPS never want to let any child out of their power and are anything but competent, but Norwegian authorities will of course never face or admit this, not even to themselves. The true answer is that with the power of the Hague convention, Norway will demand their kind of "cooperation": if they are to consent to let the children out of their power in Norway and return them to their homeland, Norwegian CPS must be guaranteed to exercise their power across the border. The Czech Republic and Lithuania must treat the children and their parents exactly like Norway treats them, they must be kept in foster homes or institutions, under supervision of Norwegian child experts and complying with their demands.
This was what Norway demanded to let the two Indian Bhattacharya children go back to India. Norwegian CPS tried to make it a condition that their mother sign away her rights ever to go to court in India. Back in India, the mother Sagarika got adequate help and competent support, however. When she succeeded in getting the children back, the CPS director in Stavanger in Norway told the newspapers here that he would certainly never let other foreign children in CPS care out of Norway.
Thread about the case (many of the articles are in English):
Indiske barn konfiskert-Såkalt barnevern ignorerer ambassade
December 2011 –
Brief summary in November 2014, in thread Child kidnapping by the Norwegian State.
This, too, is something like what Norway's neighbour Sweden demanded to let the Malaysian deputy foreign minister escort four Malaysian children back to Malaysia to their relatives when the parents were jailed in Sweden on suspicion and charge of child abuse:
Welfare Dept updating Swedish counterparts on well-being of kids
The Star, 6 March 2014
Custodial rights return only if Sweden is satisfied
Free Malaysia Today, 3 October 2014
Thread about the case:
Malaysian family in Sweden – children taken
So, citizens abroad who are concerned at the way Norway destroys family bonds and family members: Ask Norway why they do not cooperate right away, regardless of any convention! And if you get a reply at all, judge for yourselves whether the reply makes any sense!
Naïve countries, looking to Scandinavia as a model of human rights and the rule of law, might do well to go into matters behind what Norway says more thoroughly, and perhaps reconsider the scope of their cooperation with Norway. Concern for their own citizens with children seeking refuge back home from Norway's attacks – and perhaps for other refugees – would seem more important.
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26 April 2015
Yesterday the website Delfi brought the encouraging news that a Lithuanian boy and his mother have succeeded in fleeing Norway and have reached Lithuania:
Lithuania won't hand back child taken away from Norwegian foster carers, police say
A Lithuanian child taken away from his foster carers in Norway and secretly driven to Lithuania and his mother will not be handed over to Norway, a spokesman for the Police Department said.
Delfi, by The Lithuania Tribune, 25 April 2015
The article does not say whether this is Gabrielius or another child, but anyway it is wonderful news! At least one mother and son have been reunited. When Norway will not act humanely, then resolute action from Lithuania has helped keep their own citizens safe. Congratulations to this mother and child on belonging to a better state than Norway!
We note that Norway is so aggressive over the escape that the Interior Minister has had to tell them that Lithuania will defend the boy, and that the mother is safe as long as she remains in Lithuania. Norway has, of course, an international search warrant out for mother and son and demands their return to Norway, the son to a life in CPS foster care, the mother to criminal prosecution for "kidnapping" of her son.
" 'The police know where the woman and her child are. He lives with his mother. The Child Rights Protection Service has no complaints about that family. We have informed Norway's authorities about this,' the spokesman said on LRT Radio.
'The search for the child as a missing person should be discontinued. The search (warrant) for his mother will remain in effect. If she stays in Lithuania, she is safe, but if she tries to go to some other country, she may be detained in that country,' he said.
Norway has launched an international search for the child and his mother and asked to hand them over."
Norway has gone completely crazy, our authorities maintain a delusional world of ideas which is so senseless, so beyond welfare state and rule of law and human rights, that Norway practically gets what it wants because other nations can hardly believe that Norway really is this untrustworthy. But in this instance at least, Lithuanian politicians on a high level have understood that this is what Norway is like.
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The website Barnevern.org has more information and is very well updated! Apparently, this is not Gabrielius, it is a boy Jonavoje and his mother Kristinos Vaitkevičienės:
Litauisk barn trygt tilbake i Litauen (Lithuanian child back safely in Lithuania)
Barnevern.org, 25 April 2015
Barnevern.org also reports: "According to the media he was taken from his mother because he had got into a fight with another boy at school." When one knows something of what Norwegian child protection is like, one also knows that such an incident can very well be the sole reason why he was taken by the child protection agency. The Norwegians will of course place the blame for the fighting on the mother.
Also:
Baltikum sier at Norge, UK og Finland har stjålet deres barn (The Baltic states say that Norway, the UK and Finland have stolen their children)
Barnevern.org, 23 April 2015
Baltic States Say Norway, UK and Finland Have Stolen Their Children
Newsweek, 23 April 2015
Authorities in Lithuania looking for boy in Norway
Barnevern.org, 13 March 2015
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