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 Post subject: Several articles expected in the Sunday Guardian in India
PostPosted: Thu Oct 12, 2017 6:02 am 
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Morten Ørsal Johansen's article in America:

Norwegian Child Protection Barnevernet (CWS), a State Within the State?
Wings of the Wind, Chris Reimers' blog, 9 October 2017

From there the article spread further, with a link back to Wings of the Wind:

Norwegian Child Protection Barnevernet (CWS), a State Within the State?
Armonia Magazine – USA, 10 October 2017

Norwegian Child Protection Barnevernet (CWS), a State Within the State?
Ciprian Barsan, 10 October 2017

These three are from the "Bible belt" in the United States, people who were also very active helping the Bodnariu case get international publicity. The latter two are run by Romanian-Americans.

Chris Reimers wrote a very pertinent comment to the article, and has allowed me to copy it in full:

"FINALLY!!! A Norwegian politician with the pluck to tell it like it is.

A week ago, I received an email informing me of this article and giving me permission to print it. My understanding is that while it has gotten a good deal of notice in Norway and as far away as India, the propaganda machine at the Barnevernet (The Norwegian Child Welfare Services) is in full overdrive. No comments are being made by those responsible for the honest description of the situation by Mr. Johansen and for all appearances the Norwegian CPS services continue to “thrive” in “The best place to live in the world.”

Hopefully, Mr. Johansen’s article will have a much greater effect than leaving notes of protest at Prime Minister Erna Solberg’s Facebook page. There, concerned citizens have left comments en masse about this awful situation only to have the entire conversation deleted. The families who have experienced the “help” described by Mr. Johansen must feel like those who have left an individual comment for Ms. Solberg. The comment is lost among thousands. The difference is, in truth, the difference between having your child(ren) stolen and being ignored on social media.

“Norway is a parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy.” “Today the King’s duties are mainly representative and ceremonial. When the Constitution states that: ‘the executive power is vested in the King’, this now means that it is vested in the Government.” Thus, Harald V won’t be pulling a sword from a stone or anvil “à la manière de” Arthur on this issue anytime soon. It’s going to take more men like Johansen to make a difference.

One has to question democratic freedoms in such a society. When it comes to child welfare policies, Norway is very dictatorial and requires almost complete subservience to the state. This is much more totalitarian in nature than anything free.

I know some wonderful people in Norway. I pray that they find a way to vote in more men like Mr. Johansen. This evil has gone on far too long.

Chris Reimers"


In a mail, Chris Reimers makes an encouraging remark about the policy of making the world aware of what is going on, i.e of publicity:
"If some guy living in the woods in Arkansas knows about the corrupt BV, then it is possible for the whole world to know."
   !


  
  

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 Post subject: Several articles expected in the Sunday Guardian in India
PostPosted: Sun Oct 15, 2017 7:30 am 
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June Conway:
Some ethical objections to the 'Named Person Scheme"
Sunday Guardian, 14 October 2017

"The Scottish government passed the Children and Young People Act in 2014, mandating that every child in Scotland should have a state-appointed “Named Person” to oversee its wellbeing from conception until the child reaches the age of 18 years. The state official might be a midwife pre-birth, a health visitor for pre-school children or a head teacher for the older child. It became known as the “Named Person Scheme” and was part of the Scottish government’s Getting it Right for Every Child (GIRFEC) policy."

"At the heart of the policy is the notion that children are inherently vulnerable and require constant vigilance. Childrearing is so complex and difficult that parents cannot be trusted to make important decisions.Parents are expected, therefore, to work in partnership with state officials who are the true experts. By getting to know children within their families, sharing important information about them with health, social care and education professionals, the Named Person can form a picture of the whole child within their family. It is the Named Person who decides how well the child is progressing and whether or not parenting is a success. It can be seen that within this scheme parents are under constant scrutiny and have no right to a private life."

"After due process the legislation was eventually appealed in the Supreme Court, the highest court in the United Kingdom. Much to the embarrassment of the Scottish government, the five judges were unanimous in declaring that Holyrood had “exceeded its powers by making a law that allowed public bodies to share sensitive private information about children and parents without consent”. The information-sharing provisions of the proposals were “incompatible with the rights of children, young persons and parents under Article 8 [right to family life] of the European Convention of Human Rights.” "

" “The first thing that a totalitarian regime tries to do is to get to the children, to distance them from the subversive, varied influences of their families, and indoctrinate them in their rulers’ view of the world .” (UK Supreme Court judgment, 2015.)"


This article goes right to the heart of matters. It is extremely alarming, but it actually also brings a certain relief to this Norwegian heart. It shows so well that we in Norway, saddled with our wayward child "protection" with all that it entails, are not alone. There are clear-eyed people around us in other countries, close to us, who see what we see, who are struggling with the same problems and fighting to stop it. A court case taken all the way to the Supreme Court in the United Kingdom! And with such a valuable result, going right to Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights! All our admiration to the people who have fought this through so far! They must be in our thoughts for the next fight also, since there is certainly more to come – the supporters of the 'Named Person' scheme will not give up, June Conway writes.

The Sunday Guardian series is becoming more and more impressive. It seems to take up all the vital things (at least to my mind): the flaws of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child, the Hague Convention opening up for dangerous interpretations, the global development, Indian legislation and practice, giving important depth to our thinking about our own local concerns.

  

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 Post subject: Several articles expected in the Sunday Guardian in India
PostPosted: Mon Oct 16, 2017 1:36 pm 
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June Conway's article is now also on the website SaveYourChildren, under a different title:


June Conway:
State Surveillance For Every Child In Scotland?
SaveYourChildren, 16 October 2017

Suranya Aiyar's introduction to the article:

"This article was first published on 14 October 2017 with the title Some Ethical Objections to the ‘Named Person Scheme’ in the Indian newspaper, the Sunday Guardian as part of its on-going series with us called ‘Global Child Rights and Wrongs’.
    In this essay Scottish activist June Conway describes the controversy around a Scottish law, the “Named Person Scheme”, which appoints a state official to keep all children and their parents under state scrutiny and mandatory reporting from conception till majority. This scheme was developed under the Scottish government’s ‘Getting It Right For Every Child’ Policy (GIRFEC) which the Scottish government describes on its website as an approach to child policy that “has been built up” from the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). It is interesting to see how the UNCRC was interpreted in Scotland to develop a plan to keep families under constant and all-pervasive state scrutiny, and how parents were the last to find out about it. Though the UNCRC pays lip service to a child’s rights to its family, not a single country has interpreted its provisions to develop schemes that would strengthen vulnerable families. In practice its implementation in country after country has meant the establishment of laws and agencies that police the family. Its provisions have been used to justify increasingly swift and permanent severance of a child’s ties with its natural family."


  

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 Post subject: Several articles expected in the Sunday Guardian in India
PostPosted: Sun Oct 22, 2017 7:35 am 
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Suranya Aiyar:
The threat posed by global child-rights conventions
Sunday Guardian, 21 October 2017

"Almost no country from Asia, Africa or the Middle East has signed the Hague Convention on Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction (Hague Convention). The extraordinary US efforts to get India to do so seem to be with an eye to getting others in the Global South to follow suit."

"Contrary to what US consular officials in India are saying, the Hague Convention is not limited to inter-parental custody disputes. For such disputes, procedures for the recognition of foreign custodial orders already exist in India and the USA. Going beyond parental custody, the Hague Convention grants powers to any “institution” or “other body” to make cross-country custodial claims over children. This would allow child protection agencies to chase both parents around the world to forcibly extradite their children.
    Norway, whose child welfare agency is notorious for snatching children unreasonably, especially of immigrants, is already using the Hague Convention to force back children leaving Norway with their parents when its child welfare services come knocking on the door."


"Although ASFA had cross-party support, there has always been opposition from ordinary Americans to unwarranted intrusion by CPS agencies. The opposition to CPS is largely ignored by the mainstream media but is voiced by many in President Trump’s base—practicing Christians and the so-called “Alt Right”.

"My work helping Indian families abroad who were victimised by the CPS brought me into contact with activists around the world trying to expose its atrocities. Like me, many of them feel betrayed by liberal intellectuals. How was it that people like Hillary Clinton actively fostered a system that was causing such grave injustice, especially to mothers, impoverished families and immigrants? Children were being snatched in the most brutal and undemocratic manner, and all you heard from liberals were sanctimonious declarations of children not being the “property” of parents. Of course they are not. Neither are they the property of the state!"

"But for every friend who shrugged me off, there was a faithful Christian stranger who came to the rescue. They had seen the mistake that lies at the heart of the international child protection project: the failure to see that filial ties, and the strengthening not the severance of those ties where they are weak, are essential to child welfare. These conservative Christians were organised, informed and compassionate. It was the liberals who were ignorant, unfeeling and arrogant—labels they so freely hand out to others."


Monday 23 October:
The article has in the course of 24 hours or so climed to the top place on the "Most Read" list: SundayGuardianLive.
    Suranya, who is also an artist, har herself drawn a fantastic illustration, of a pregnant woman seeing grasping hands in the air threatening to take her child!



  

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 Post subject: Several articles expected in the Sunday Guardian in India
PostPosted: Fri Oct 27, 2017 6:40 am 
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Suranya Aiyar's Sunday Guardian article is now also on her website SaveYourChildren, under a different title:

Suranya Aiyar:
Global Child Rights Conventions Misunderstand Children and Undermine the Family to their Detriment
SaveYourChildren, 27 October 2017


Her introduction to the article:

"The Trump Administration should take up the worldwide fight against injustices by authoritarian and anti-family child protection services, a cause already espoused by many in the President's base. The threat of global child rights conventions arises once again for India as the USA mistakenly pressures us to sign the Hague Convention on Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction (Hague Convention). Contrary to what US consular officials in India are saying, the Hague Convention is not limited to inter-parental custody disputes. Going beyond parental custody, the Hague Convention grants powers to any “institution” or "other body" to make cross-country custodial claims over children. This would allow child protection agencies to chase both parents around the world to forcibly extradite their children. The Hague Convention is part of an array of anti-family and globalist regulations that aim to give the State supra-custodial rights over children. What Trump supporters in the USA say against globalism echoes with many of us CPS critics as we struggle to understand how the well-meaning effort to help abused and disadvantaged children went so wrong. If there has ever been an example of the folly of internationalism and unchecked state intervention in private life, it is CPS."

  

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 Post subject: Several articles expected in the Sunday Guardian in India
PostPosted: Sun Oct 29, 2017 9:59 am 
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Dr. Catherine Lynch:
Ethical case for abolishing all forms of surrogacy
Sunday Guardian, 28 October 2017

"All surrogacy is cruel to human infants because even so-called “altruistic surrogacy” demands the removal of the neonate from her or his gestational mother when every aspect, every cell, every desire of that neonate, is geared toward being on the body of the gestational mother, to suckle and seek comfort and safety."

"Whether surrogacy is altruistic (in whatever limited sense) or commercial, the fundamental ethical issues remains the same. Ekman sums this up well: “the woman is reduced to a container… Pregnancy is made into a function that serves others. Functionalisation always precedes commercialisation, as we have seen in prostitution. In order for something to be sold as separate from the seller, it must first be constituted as a separate function. What happens in the rhetoric of altruistic surrogacy is that it subversively accustoms people to seeing pregnancy as something a woman can lend to others—if she is not selling it.”

"When the commissioning parent is not the donor, this causes yet another fracturing in the child’s identity between its genetic, gestational and legal parents. Such surrogate children are biologically unrelated in any way to their legal parents. With this comes the loss of identity: the forced ignorance of the self and of basic kinship and ancestral structures. This self-knowledge—so important and so intrinsic to self-identity —creates a sense of belonging and meaningful living within the fabric of kinship/familial connection and has been central to human culture for millennia."

"Surrogacy Australia, an Australian pro-surrogacy NGO, argues that permitting and regulating commercial surrogacy in Australia will provide safeguards for the rights of children by preventing people taking them from overseas. But when the rights and interests of newborn babies are prioritised and duly considered as they must be, then it is obvious that it is surrogacy itself which violates children’s rights and functions against their interests. Legalising commercial surrogacy only takes this commodification of people and the exploitation of women to its extreme. Human beings should never be supported by governments to be for rent or sale. Commercial surrogacy should be unthinkable in a modern society that assumes it is on some sort of path toward a greater or “better” humanity."

  

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 Post subject: Several articles expected in the Sunday Guardian in India
PostPosted: Sun Oct 29, 2017 10:07 am 
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The introduction to Catherine Lynch's article:

In this, the fifth [should be: sixth] instalment of the ongoing series Global Child Rights, and Wrongs in the Sunday Guardian – run in collaboration with www.saveyourchildren.in, we take the discussion of global child rights to the field of reproductive technologies. While these are often discussed in terms of the rights of adults to have children, there is very little discussion from the perspective of the child born of such technologies. In recent years a substantial international market for surrogacy mushroomed in India. Surrogacy is regulated or banned in most developed countries, but it was only last year that the Indian government stepped in with a draft Bill to regulate surrogacy. The Bill proposes to ban commercial and international commissioning of surrogacy, and permit only altruistic surrogacy between close relatives resident here. In this essay, Australian lawyer and adoptee rights activist Dr Catherine Lynch discusses the ethics of surrogacy, making a child-centered case for the abolition of all forms of surrogacy.


The article has also been published on SaveYourChildren.in.

  

  

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 Post subject: Several articles expected in the Sunday Guardian in India
PostPosted: Tue Nov 07, 2017 5:05 pm 
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Dr Kaustav Bhattacharyya:
EU’s child-welfare rules and Europe’s ‘soft empire’ games
Sunday Guardian, 4 November 2017

"How does the EU exercise authority? One of its powerful weapons is “Regulations” or “Standards-Setting”, which it uses not just to wield power over member states, but to extend its tentacles much beyond its geographical borders. Child welfare and family practices assume top priority, along with environmental norms, in these “soft empire” games of the EU.

This is evident from Article 3(3) of the Lisbon Treaty which introduced as an objective for the EU a model for child rights that was directly adopted from the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child."



"An elaborate institutional network has been established with NGOs, activists and child-care practitioners whose job is to actively convince and propagate in EU member states and the wider world the EU’s vision of what the best and optimal child-care model should be.

Nordic states play an important role in this imperial game. The Nordic welfare state model is touted as the perfect model both within and outside the EU. It is widely considered to be the ideal towards which the EU aspires. EU thinkers such as Professor Karl Ove Moene describe the “Nordic experience”as “a society model” (2011 CASE Policy Research Seminar lecture on “Nordic Experience”)."



"In their book Immigration Policy and the Scandinavian Welfare State, AnnikenHagelund and Grete Bochmann have described the relationship between immigrants and the welfare state as being one of tension and discomfiture. Katrin Kriz and Marit Skivenes, in their research paper funded by the Norwegian Research Council, titled “Challenges for Marginalized Minority Parents in Different Welfare Systems: Child welfare workers’ perspectives”, published in the International Social Work Journal (2012), conducted a cross-country empirical study of the challenges faced by marginalised racial and ethnic minority families from different welfare agencies in England, Norway and the United States . The study clearly indicated a certain oblivion towards the possible challenges faced by migrant families, especially those of colour, in a predominantly “White” society with different cultural
values and ethos.

Intriguingly, this was more acute in Norway than the other countries included in the study, where the social workers in child welfare acknowledged the difficulties of belonging to a different race and culture. Norwegian child-care workers expressed little sympathy for the difficulties being faced by migrant families and their children. The Norwegian child welfare system has the ideology of “universalizing” its society, where in the name of fairness and equality, emphasis is placed on the criteria of “sameness” in growing up and child-rearing."


  

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 Post subject: Several articles expected in the Sunday Guardian in India
PostPosted: Tue Nov 07, 2017 5:13 pm 
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The introduction to Kaustav Bhattacharyya's article:

In this, the sixth [should be: seventh] installment of our ongoing series Global Child Rights, and Wrongs, run in collaboration with www.saveyourchildren.in, Dr Kaustav Bhattacharyya presents international "standards-setting" as a tactic by the European Union (EU) for exerting influence around the world. He argues that child-welfare measures and best practices are an important tool in the EU's exercise of 'soft' empire. Dr Bhattacharyya cautions that we in India should not blindly adopt the EU's universalising measures in child policy as research is showing that they have resulted in discrimination against immigrants, marginalised communities and ethnic minorities.


The article has also been published on SaveYourChildren.in, under the title
EU Plays Soft Empire Games With Global Child Rights.
  

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 Post subject: Several articles expected in the Sunday Guardian in India
PostPosted: Sat Nov 11, 2017 9:39 pm 
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Cristina Nicoli:
Norway’s Barnevernet and its parallels in human history
Sunday Guardian, 11 November 2017


"Growing up in Australia, I learnt about its young past. I discovered its dark aspects such as the “Stolen Generation” of part-Aboriginal children, which occurred throughout most of the 20th century. This knowledge sparked a nerve when I first heard of Norway’s Child Protection Service: Barnevernet."

"Like most Romanians around the world, I saw news of a young Romanian/Norwegian family, the Bodnarius, who were caught up in a surreal drama in Norway. Their five children, including a three-month-old suckling infant, had been removed."

"None of the reasons given by Barnevernet justified the treatment of the family."

"Australia was “discovered” in 1770, and soon after was declared “Terra Nullius”, which means uninhabited or “no one’s land”.
.....   However, this ignorant claim led to multiple levels of abuse by the Europeans. They completely overlooked an established population with culture, beliefs, traditions, languages, law system and well-functioning family structures; they were the Aboriginal people.
.....   One other such crime, and yet not the least, was the rape of many women. When they gave birth, the Europeans decided due to the part breed, that the children should receive some form of education, and thus began the “Stolen Generation”.
.....   Children were taken out of the arms of their mothers, sent interstate or at a great distance from their family, and kept in “mission camps” where the education was actually “re-education”. Most of these children never saw their families again.
    The children cried and screamed but were met with extreme force. Their wild outbursts were not viewed as trauma, but rather the part that was “Aboriginal”. This happened legally between 1910 to 1970."


"To be fair, every continent has some history of abuse towards children. Spain abducted up to 300,000 children during the Spanish Civil War and Francoist Spain during 1944-1954 and these are known as the “Lost Children of Francoism”. Argentina stole children from parents fighting the regime during 1976-1983 and unfortunately, up to 30,000 were killed. Part of the Generalplan Ost (GPO), Germany took Aryan-looking children from around Europe, an estimated 400,000 during 1939-1944, and moved them to Germany for “Germanisation”; a form of indoctrination into becoming culturally German. “Eugenics-Forced Sterilisation” occurred during 1934-1975 in Sweden, where approximately 21,000 people were either forced or coerced into sterilisation. Since the 1850s, and well into the 20th century, Swiss children were taken from their parents to work on farms and the era is known as “Contract Children” between 1850-1980.
    The list goes on, and while these events are now in the past, they are stains that should not be ignored because without genuine reflection, history can repeat itself."


"Another form of child removal in Australia was “Forced Adoptions”. This was legal from the 1950s to the 1970s. Young mothers from poor families were targeted. In 2013, the first female Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, officially apologised. She started her apology with, “Today, this Parliament, on behalf of the Australian people, takes responsibility and apologises for the policies and practices that forced the separation of mothers from their babies which created a lifelong legacy of pain and suffering.” "

"The Opposition Leader at the time, Tony Abbott, added his own views on the issue, claiming “I cannot imagine a grief greater than that of a parent and a child parted from each other... This is a tragedy for them and for our nation and we must atone
for it.”
    This gives me hope that while a nation’s history may be dark, a future government can see the devastation and apologise.
    If a “less” developed nation like Australia can recognise its shame, could Norway one day be as bold?"


  

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 Post subject: Several articles expected in the Sunday Guardian in India
PostPosted: Sat Nov 11, 2017 9:43 pm 
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The introduction to Cristina Nicoli's article:

In this, the eighth instalment of our ongoing series Global Child Rights, and Wrongs, run in collaboration with http://www.saveyourchildren.in, we take a look at historic instances of state-sponsored child confiscation around the world. The 20th century saw many episodes of child removal by the state in developed countries, whether in the name of racial cleansing, or educating, civilising, integrating or indoctrinating children. Cristina Nicoli surveys these historic instances of forced child removal, pointing out that Norway's notorious Barnevernet is a present manifestation of the same dark past.

  

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 Post subject: Several articles expected in the Sunday Guardian in India
PostPosted: Mon Nov 13, 2017 12:04 pm 
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Cristina Nicoli's Sunday Guardian article is now also on the website SaveYourChildren, under a different title:

Cristina Nicoli:
The Brutal History of Child Confiscation by the State
SaveYourChildren, 13 November 2017


SaveYourChildren's version of the article has useful links to documentation of examples given.


SaveYourChildren's introduction to the article:

"In this gripping essay, Cristina Nicoli, an Australian of Romanian origin, traces Norway’s notorious child confiscation practices to historical instances of state-sponsored child removal. A grotesque picture emerges of brutal episodes of forced child removal over the last century all over the Western world, and its colonies, from Europe to Latin America to Australia, whether in the name of racial cleansing, or educating, ‘civilising’, integrating, or politically indoctrinating children. A version of this article was published on 11 November 2017 in the Sunday Guardian with the title ‘Norway’s Barnevernet and its parallels in human history’ as part of our ongoing weekly series with them called ‘Global Child Rights And Wrongs’."

(On SaveYourChildren, the article has a large picture with a central motive: a kangaroo. The whole picture is absolutely in a style we recognise from Australian aboriginal art. It is a painting made by 8 year old Uma Aiyar Walia! – Suranya Aiyar's daughter.)

  

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 Post subject: Several articles expected in the Sunday Guardian in India
PostPosted: Sat Nov 18, 2017 8:16 pm 
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Madhu Kishwar, currently Maulana Azad National Professor of ICSSR and founder president of human rights organisation, MANUSHI:
Child protection laws further marginalising the underclass
Part 1
Sunday Guardian, 18 November 2017

"Pre-colonial India was host to hundreds of wandering folk artists, or ghumantoo jaatis, practicing various traditional arts. They were singers, dancers, acrobats, sword-swallowers, rope dancers and so on. Readers will be familiar with some of their names—Bhopas, Saperas, Bauls, Madaris andKathputhliwallas. Since most of these communities posed tough resistance to colonial rule, many of them were declared as “criminal tribes” by the British in 1871. They were “de-notified” after Independence, but their brutalisation at the hands of government agencies continues even today—often using paternalistic laws passed ostensibly for the benefit of the poor."

"In the name of child protection and the right to education, the police, in cahoots with NGOs, snatch Nat children and their parents when they are found performing on the streets. The children are sent to orphanages or welfare homes. The women are sent to women’s shelters. The men are jailed on charges of the crime of “begging”."

"The children’s fate is decided by Child Welfare Committees (CWCs). The process of release is complicated, expensive and takes months— even years. In the meantime, the children are kept in poor conditions in the so-called “protection” Homes."

"When the MANUSHI team spoke to member of the concerned CWC, at first they spoke enthusiastically about the acrobatic skills of Kavita and Moni who had clearly performed their kalabaazi in the Home to the appreciation of all. But when MANUSHI requested for their release, the CWC members changed their tune and said, “No, these children cannot be given back to their parents who are cruel enough to put them to begging by performing dangerous forms of kheltamasha. We are not going to permit their parents from exploiting them any further. The children are in good hands here. No question of letting them out.” The CWC also appeared to be ignorant of the dirty and unsafe conditions in the Home for the children."

A story very, very reminiscent of the way the Taters, a gipsy-like group, have been treated in Norway. Cf


Romani distrust of government lives on
Speech by Nils Muižnieks, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights:
Conference presenting the results of the work of the Norwegian Tater/Romani Commission
Elias Akselsen – the Romany Ambassador
Dr Mengele & Co in action in Norwegian homes?
Apology for the past? Trust in future? What about the present?

*

Part 2 of Madhu Kishwar's article will be published next week.

  

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 Post subject: Several articles expected in the Sunday Guardian in India
PostPosted: Sat Nov 18, 2017 8:32 pm 
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Sunday Guardian's introduction to Madhu Kishwar's article:

In this edition of our ongoing series, Global Child Rights And Wrongs, run in collatoration with http://www.saveyourchildren.in, academic and human-rights activist Madhu Kishwar describes the harassment faced by children of the impoverished Nat community of wandering acrobatic performers under poorly thought-out child- and social-welfare laws. Rather than uplifting such children, these laws compound the problems arising from their parents1 poverty and lack of work opportunities.

  

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 Post subject: Re:Several articles expected in the Sunday Guardian in India
PostPosted: Tue Nov 21, 2017 8:01 pm 
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Here is a video with Madhu Kishwar, at a demonstration against the CPS:

Anti-CPS Speech by Indian Academic and Rights Activist, Madhu Kishwar
Suranya Aiyar, on youtube, 3 February 2016

*

Madhu Kishwar's article, Part 1, is also on SaveYourChildren.

Madhu Kishwar:
Child protection laws further marginalising the underclass
Part 1: Indian NGOs and Child Welfare Committees traumatise Nat children in the name of “child protection”
SaveYourChildren, 20 November 2017


SaveYourChildren's introduction:

"Well-known academic, writer and human rights activist Madhu Kishwar describes the harassment faced by Nat children under poorly thought-out child and social welfare laws. The Nats are an impoverished community of wandering acrobatic performers, whose performance traditions go back hundreds of years. Rather than uplifting Nat children, the Indian child rights laws along with NGOs and Child Welfare Committees implementing them are compounding the problems arising from their parents’ poverty and lack of work opportunities. It is high time that people in public policy wake up to the fact that welfare interventions, well-intentioned as they may be, can end up being oppressive to the very people they are supposed to help. Madhu Kishwar’s essay on the Nats will be published in several parts over the coming weeks, with a more detailed version with video recordings of interviews with Nat families to be published on the website of her organisation, MANUSHI. This article was originally published by the Sunday Guardian on 18 November 2017 with the title Child protection laws further marginalising the underclass as part of our weekly series in collaboration with them called ‘Global Child Rights And Wrongs’."


Under the article there is a Note from SAVEYOURCHILDREN.IN (it includes a lot of information about the treatment of the Taters in Norway, has made use of some links supplied from Norway, and draws a parallel):

The stigmatisation and targeting of impoverished communities is a pattern to be observed the world over wherever there are child protection systems (CPS). Even in first world countries such the USA, UK, Canada, Norway or Australia it is mostly families and children living in poverty or from humble working class backgrounds that are targeted by CPS. Within such impoverished groups, often the most brutally targeted by CPS and other programmes for the “integration” of such groups are the ethnic minorities or marginalised groups such as blacks and native Indian Americans in the USA, native Indian Americans in Canada and the Romany/Roma peoples (wandering gypsy communities) of the UK, Norway and other parts of Europe. The Roma are said to have ties with (and even originated from) the wandering communities of India, especially Rajasthan and Gujarat. Indian readers will be familiar with similarities that are said to exists between the Roma and Indian gypsy music, dance and languages. However, even as the world celebrates the traditions of the gypsies and show-cases their culture, especially their music and dance, their very difference from mainstream society makes them a target of CPS systems all over the world. In this context, it is interesting to read about the way CPS in Norway has targeted their gypsy communities – also known as the “Taters”. A study conducted in 2015 reportedly showed that the Taters of Norway were “extremely afraid” of Norway’s CPS. Taters described how in their childhood they were deeply affected by the sudden disappearances of their friends, and the fear they witnessed in the adults, which they did not understand as children, of kids being taken away. This report describes the targeting of Taters as a thing of the past, however, discrimination against the Taters in Norway (and elsewhere in Europe) persists till today, and is the subject of scrutiny by the Council of Europe. Well-known Norwegian CPS-critic, Professor Marianne Skanland has collected a range of work detailing the wrongful removal of Tater children by Norwegian CPS in her article Apology for the past? Trust in future? What about the present? – Norwegian treatment of Taters and Romani people. Readers who have been following CPS issues will also be interested in Professor Skanland’s article Dr Mengele & Co in action in Norwegian homes? where she suggests, among other chilling historical parallels, similarities between the intrusive and stigmatising thinking of Norwegian CPS to the treatment of Taters in Norway. This article was first written in 1995, when there appears to have been a push in Norway for foster care as a measure of child protection. Today India is at the same place as Norway was then, on the threshold of rolling out a massive child protection programme with a great stress on foster care. The Indian Ministry for Women and Child Development has entilsted powerful multinational NGOs to popularise the idea of foster parenting, and “training” foster carers. This was how it all started in the West, with well-intentioned, but poorly thought out ideas of “helping” children from economically or socially backward families. So it is urgent and necessary that we in India understand the full experience of the West with foster care as a measure of child protection. This article by Professor Skanland was prescient in many ways. She asks, for instance, whether the Norwegian “Marte Meo” programme which allowed social workers to enter homes and film parents with their children, ostensibly to “help” them improve their parenting, was a medium for Tater-like intervention and child confiscation in Norwegian homes. Things had certainly come to this pass by 2011 where Norwegian child care workers gained access to the home in the Bhattacharya Case in the name of “Marte Meo” guidance and used their “notes” on how the parents, especially the mother, fed and bathed her children, cooked for them and generally went about her household chores, to declare the mother unfit. It was not relevant that the mother was actually doing these duties – surely in itself a reason not to order the permanent confiscation of her children with the right to see them only for an hour twice a year!

  

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