News Analysis: Norway's child welfare service urged to heed cultural differences

The recent global protests against Norway's child welfare service for aggressively taking children from their parents, many of them of foreign origins, show the authorities should pay more attention to cultural differences and bring about fundamental changes, analysts said.

While the country's child protection service, known as Barnevernet, and its supporters believe that the service is strictly oriented towards the protection of children's rights, others claim it has been taking the children by force from their biological parents and thus breaking the human rights of the family members.

CULTURAL DIFFERENCES

Psychologist Judith van der Weele, who has been working extensively with ethnic minority families in Norway, said it is a very big challenge for immigrant parents in Norway to show their parental competence to Barnevernet.

"They are afraid of Barnevernet and this huge fear stops them from willing to ask for help. The rumors' influence against Barnevernet is so big that many foreign parents even send their children back to their home country so as not to lose their children," van der Weele told Xinhua.

She said some immigrant parents get a lot of "unhealthy counseling" against the Barnevernet and they simply act unnaturally when meeting staff from the child welfare service, instead of relaxing and showing that they can handle their children in a healthy way.

"Barnevernet, on the other side, lacks competence and expertise on cultural differences as well as cultural brokers who could help to introduce different cultural habits and traditions in order to achieve mutual understanding and trust," van der Weele said.

The case of a Romanian-Norwegian couple of Pentecostal faith whose five children were taken away by Barnevernet last November has stirred up many discussions and controversies.

Marius Bodnariu, a Romanian, and his wife Ruth, a Norwegian, used corporal punishment when raising their children, a method that is illegal in Norway. They admit this and add that they still did not expect this outcome.

Some Christian believers have expressed opinion that Barnevernet simply discriminates the couple on religious and national grounds. More than 60,000 people have since January demonstrated against Barnevernet in this case in the United States, Romania and several other European countries, according to an anti-Bernevernet Facebook page.

On April 16, protests were held in 63 cities of 20 countries around the world against the Barnevernet, a follow-up of many similar events in previous years that made different nations question the way this organization is handling sensitive issues of child protection in Norway.

Officials of the Norwegian Directorate for Children, Youth and Family Affairs (Bufdir), which is in charge of Barnevernet, have said the negative attention is a challenge for the child welfare service since it depends on trust in order to do a good job.

They said Norwegian laws that ensure children may not suffer any kind of violence must be respected by everyone who lives in Norway.

"The Norwegian Child Welfare Act (CWA) outlines the responsibilities of the child welfare service and its main purpose is to ensure that children who live in conditions that can harm their health and development are given necessary help and care," Anders Henriksen, a head of section at the Bufdir, told Xinhua.

"The CWA applies to all children in Norway, regardless of their residential status, background or nationality," he said.

FUNDAMENTAL CHANGES

Gro Hillestad Thune, a Norwegian human rights lawyer, told Xinhua that the system in which the Barnevernet is given too much authority to decide the best interest of children is unjustifiable.

"Many employees in Barnevern's local offices are doing their best to help families in trouble and protect children against abusive care. But the system as such has to be fundamentally changed," Thune said.

"The present system, as it operates today, does not provide the individual child and the parents with proper legal protection against unfounded and unjustified public interference in their family life." ThuneThune added.

She said one obvious problem is that individual employees are given too many roles that in practice are incompatible: on the one hand, they are supposed to help parents to cope with their child; on the other hand, they have the power to decide to remove the child from the family home.

"What we need in this country is a profound discussion and dialogue between the authorities and various experts in order to identify the weaknesses of the present system and possible ways to improve it. One possible solution is to separate the task of helping families and the authority to remove the child from the parents," Thune said.

"The operation of the court system in child care cases must also be thoroughly analyzed and improved. Barnevernet as it operates today in many local communities does not sufficiently cooperate with teachers, health care workers and family members," she said.

Vilde Reichelt, a consultant with the Church City Mission in Oslo, a humanitarian organisation in Norway, said Barnevernet in many cases has not communicated enough with parents before taking their children away and at the same time more guidance programs will help parents of foreign origins.

"If we want foreign parents to understand why they should stop with physical upbringing methods, it would take much more than putting a brochure in their hand and telling them that it is forbidden," Reichelt told Norway's leading newspaper Aftenposten.

She said in some cases parents were imprisoned because of their child upbringing methods and expressed hope that these parents could in the future change their attitudes by taking parental guidance courses and get their children back.

Bufdir director Mari Trommald told Aftenposten that there is a higher risk that Barnevernet would, due to lack of understanding of other cultures, misperceive and intervene quickly in the cases with families from other countries.

According to her, out of 1,665 cases in 2014 when children were taken by Barnevernet, there were 424 children of non-Norwegian mothers.

The goal of Barnevernet is to reduce the number of care order cases to minimum and focus on prevention of family violence, Trommald said, adding that the service has recently been more alarmed and afraid to make errors due to a lot of discussions over the issue.

Thune agreed that immigrant parents need to be given a chance to understand that under Norwegian law any kind of corporal punishment is strictly forbidden and they should also get help to learn how to raise children without upbringing physical measures.

"When I observe cases where children are removed from immigrant parents before the parents are given a chance to improve their behavior, I consider this an unjustified public interference contrary to international human right law," she said.

"The policy of zero tolerance to violence against children should absolutely be supported, but this policy should be implemented with respect for the essential ties between children and their biological parents," Thune added. Endit