Children of Indian Couple Taken Away by Child Protection Agency in Norway for Co-Sleeping With Their Parents

An Indian couple have had their children taken away by Norwegian social workers, in a case that has put two countries' ideas of parenting in direct conflict.

Anurup and Sagarika Bhattacharya, an NRI couple living in Stavanger, Norway, lost custody of their three-year-old son Abhigyan and one-year-old daughter Aishwarya in May 2011, eight months before the story exploded into India's headlines. The children were placed in separate foster homes, and a Norwegian court ruled they would stay there until the age of 18, with the parents allowed to meet them only once a year for an hour.

The reports that ignited the outrage in India were that the parents were deemed unfit for things that are unremarkable in Indian households: feeding their children with their hands and sleeping in the same bed as them. On that reading, the case was not about abuse but about cultural incomprehension — a state agency punishing Indian parenting norms in a Norwegian welfare framework.

Norway's child welfare service, the Barnevern, denied that reading. Its head in Stavanger, Gunnar Toresen, said the children were not removed over hand-feeding, and that the Child Welfare Act applies to all children in Norway regardless of nationality, citizenship or cultural background. The agency cited confidentiality rules for not discussing the case in detail.

The standoff quickly became diplomatic. India's External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna demanded that Norway "find an amicable and urgent solution," and India's ambassador lodged an official protest. India's position: the children are Indian citizens, not stateless persons, and belong with their family in India.

A way out has emerged. Norwegian social workers agreed to place the children with the father's brother — their uncle in India — pending a final court decision in Stavanger, provisionally scheduled for March. The children's parents' visas in Norway expire in March, which has added urgency to getting the children back to India.

The case leaves an uncomfortable question hanging over every expatriate family: where exactly does a state's duty to protect children end, and a family's right to its own culture begin?

Sources

• Norway takes Indian couple's children — The Free Library (NDTV wire)
• Father lifts lid on India-Norway child custody row — The Free Library
• India to send policy framework on child rights to Norway — The Hindu BusinessLine