Plea made for putting Abhigyan, Aishwarya in custody of extended family
The Norwegian government has expressed understanding for India's concerns over the matter related to the separation of three-year old Abhigyan and one-year old Aishwarya from their natural parents by the Norwegian Childcare Services which placed them under foster care last year.
A statement issued by the Ministry of External Affairs here said Oslo is understood to be trying to find a solution to the issue.
Pointing out that the matter has been pursued actively with the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs after the strong demarches that were made in Oslo and in New Delhi on January 5, this year. On January 12, an official of the Indian embassy visited the foster home where the young children are staying and ascertained that they were in good health, the statement said.
Following this visit the embassy reiterated the concerns of India to the Ministry that the children were being deprived of the undoubted benefits of being brought up in their own ethnic, religious cultural and linguistic milieu. Hence, the return of the children to India so that they could be brought up in familiar surroundings under the loving care of their extended family would be in their best long-term interests.
The matter will continue to be pursued with them actively, the statement added.
The two children were taken away from their parents Anurup and Sagarika by a child welfare service in May last year after they concluded that their mother was not capable of bringing up the children well.
The children's grandparents on Saturday met President Pratibha Patil to seek her intervention in getting the custody of the children who would have to stay with the foster families until they were 18. Worse, the visa of Anurup and Sagarika expires next month.
Mr. Knotts
You hit the nail on the head with regard to some important differences between Norway &
India. Laws are taken seriously and implemented, corruption is very, very low - Norway
ranks at a very respectable 10th position in terms of lack of corruption according to
Transparency International. Additionally, it is also important for Indians to realise the true
independence of the judiciary - neither politicians, external international pressure or media
hype in India will sway the courts in Norway.
The CWS is not infallible and no one in Norway doubts that. I am not privy to the facts of this
case and will desist making bombastic statements about it. But on the whole,the CWS does
a darn good job to ensure that the rights of children triumph over other considerations. it gets
its share of flak but then we dont have many Baby Falaks in Norway.
Incidentally, how many of you middle class Indians expressed outrage at the Baby Falak
case in India?
I find a lot of bizzare issues here:(1) Why the Indian consulate in Norway did not step in before? If the kids are Norwegian citizens by birth, this could be problematic. (2) The guy is working for an American firm. Why they did not step in, and sort out the mess? (3) The parents were under observation for a while. If some one is living in a country, which has tough child protection laws, and is under the scanner of eagle-eyed social services, the sensible and the quickest actions should be to change the way we rear kids to the satisfaction of the child care services. It is not difficult to carryout necessary make over to make our children lives better. It also does not take much time or cost a lot to get suitable toys and clothes, make room to provide a decent legroom for children to play in the house, put the son to sleep on his own bed and however silly it may be, get a nappy changing table. If they want us to hold the baby in your hand while breast feeding, well so be it.
Indians who wish to enter any "developed nation" for any purpose - employment or tourism - will do well to study the law of the country they wish to visit. In India there may not be any law concerning how child should be fed or brought up. This is something that is left to the child's parents. Even if there is any law, most of us are not simply aware of it. We are not bothered so much about laws in this country at all since "laws" are not being implemented and some are busy circumventing and finding loopholes in the existing laws. For example, there is a law against begging and bribery and we know very well what the situation is a la corruption. But the situation in countries like Norway and other developed countries is different - any law is taken seriously by the government and the citizenry alike. Before snatching away the children from the parents, the concerned authorities ought to have warned the parents and should have given proper guidance on "Norwegian" style of parenting.
This is really not acceptable, and very unfortunate. Not on facebook but I would suggest that someone who is on should start a facebook campaign.
I am sure a peaceful resolution will be reached, now that the government of India and Norway government are aware of this problem. Perhaps the child services could have put certain conditions before taking this extreme step: they could have insisted that the mother have some form of depression evaluation, and if indeed she is having some problem, treatment should be put as a condition.
Sadly, though, in India, depression is never taken seriously, because people have a stigma of anything "mental".
Very sad. Children should definitely be brought back to India....My prayers with the parents....unfortunately nobody understands cultural diversity except India and indians.......
This is nothing less than State sponsored kidnapping. Unless they are released immediately Indians should boycott the country and its goods.
Any sane person has to support strong child welfare laws that take children out of the hands of cruel and unloving families, but if all they had to bring against the mother in this case was that she was depressed and negligent, then this is madness. Hopefully a rapid resolution is in the works.
Though the concern of Norwegian authorities for welfare of children may
be genuine, I would like to know what offence the parents or the mother
of the said children have committed which called for such harsh action
from the authorities.
Astonishing disregard by the norweigian authorities for all norms of
humanity and sensitivity to the feelings of the kids and the parents. I
can only imagine what the entire family is going through. Give the kids
back to the parents to be raised in their own cultural and ethnic
environment and stop breaking families. The government of india should
strongly protest this interference with the lives of indian citizens.
It is nice that GoI has taken interest in this matter but not everyone
will be able to approach the President or the MEA
Also this is belated response from GoI looking at the fact that the
children have been taken away in May 2011 where as the matter seem to
have catch the attention as late as Jan 2012
This is also because of the media attention to this issue
How many people of India would be able to attract media attention - that is another question. Also we need to see if Norwegian are so much interested to provide proper care to every child, then why not they can adopt some of the orphanage in India and will they not consider it an illegal migration or abuse of the system if people from other developing countries start pouring in with some children to be taken care of ?
Parents have a right to 'be parents' , shower love and affection upon their children . There is nothing wrong if a mother makes a child eat from her hand or making her baby sleep besides her. This is what it means to 'be human.'
Paternal deprivation may have serious psychological draw backs, feelings of insecurity , lack of confidence in the long run. I think a child psychologist should be consulted in this regard. Moreover , see the condition of the parents. They are not hurting any body in any way! So why are they being made to suffer in this way?
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