A Norwegian woman, Slije Garmo, fled Norway last year after the internationally-condemned Norwegian Child Services (Barnevernet) began proceedings to take away her children. Barnevernet is the world's biggest such organisation in the numbers of children the state seizes, with around 3% of Norwegian children given mandatory counseling (US analogy: 2.2 million) and around a quarter (US comparison: half a million children) taken from parents every year. The organisation has sparked protests in India, Russia, Philippines, Poland, United Kingdom, Australia, Czech Republic, Spain, Canada and riots in Romania. India notably recalled their embassy over the issue.
The organisation seizes children for a variety of what it calls 'abuses', including parents being in poverty, parents being ill, parents trying to pass religion to children, spanking and in one case seizing a child because the mother didn't send her to school for a week because the school didn't take bullying claims seriously. The organisation also uses questionable tactics in seizing children, with videos on youtube showing officials helped by police in grabbing screaming children by each limb and throwing them in cars and intercepting children while they're in schools without the parents' knowledge with lies about where they're going to invite them into vans. The organisation was also known to have knowingly employed psychiatrists with convictions of child pornography. Between 1945 and 1980, the organisation was known to have abused children, and in 2010 4000 claimants successfully fought for compensation totaling $1.3bn for their abuse.
In February 2016, Norway was reprimanded by the European Court of Human Rights over Barnevernet, with no less than 8 separate cases on the issue of parental rights, child abuse and kidnapping.
The organisation has been covered in a BBC exposure report here // Australian SBS:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XrzUAQ4qpE // https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-PzrwliUk4
For example, in the case of Ruth and her Romanian husband Marius ("Bodnariu family") the organisation took four kids because they regularly took their children to Christian church and were accused of Christian indoctrination. In some creepy movie-like scenes, the parents described three black vans circling their farm and taking the children, with a single woman from Barnevernet knocking on their door inviting them to a police station. They took their case to the European Court of Human Rights on grounds of religious discrimination, and although their case failed the Norwegian government later admitted failings and offered compensation.
In one other bizarre case a Lithuanian woman had their child randomly taken away because the children services wanted to combat 'inbreeding' and accused her national background of having higher rates of inbreeding than Norway. The organisation also takes children from tourists, and in 2015 the Czech President accused Norway of acting like the Nazis after children were taken away from parents because they spoke Czech at home. Putin has issued similar statements regarding the treatment of Russian-speaking families. In one case the services took away a baby right after birth because the mother was 'too poor', and the services are also known to have taken children because parents are ill, including having asthma.
A few years ago, India ended diplomatic relations with Norway over treatment of an Indian family of doctors. And that's just external cases spoken about in foreign media - there are hundreds more cases of Norwegians themselves having children taken away for a variety of reasons, only covered in local media or not at all.
In one controversial case, a famous Polish investigator kidnapped a Russian child from Norway from his foster family after he was taken away from his biological parents. In the first instance of the child being given access to a telephone, the child called his real parents and begged for them to rescue him. The investigator took the child while he was outside and fled the country with him, and reunited him with his real family. Norway issued an extradition request to Poland, but Poland immediately dropped the case without further action.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfQP9tPY3bI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuuOXhaRSYk
https://europex.lt/wp-content/uploads/2 ... vernet.jpg
But let's skip all that. This thread is here to talk about the first case of a Norwegian national being given asylum in history. In this scenario, it is Slije Gormo, who escaped to Poland last year and was granted asylum last week by the Polish authorities. She arrived in Poland with her daughter Eira, four months old at the time, in May 2017 after being warned by friends that her child would probably be taken away. Norway’s Barnevernet child welfare service accused Garmo of the heavy crime of being fatigued, as well as using painkillers. In other words, she's too ill and tired to raise a child.
Although most of Norway's interventions in children are to poor people and immigrants, Gormo is a Norwegian (Sami) woman who is educated and wealthy, which raised eyebrows when her children were taken away. But it appears that in recent times the reasons of why children can be taken away have been extended to mothers' physical restraints. More curiously, she's actually a lawyer. She has criticised Norwegian law for giving a blank cheque to Barnevernet, because its remit for seizing children is "concern" which can include absolutely anything they want to conjure up against the parents.
The Polish government itself supported her case. This is not the first time that native Norwegians have fled to Poland - in 2016 one family arrived in Poland after the mother was accused of being insane by Norwegian authorities. They took their children and emigrated, but were issued with an Interpol APB. The Polish govt refused their extradition request and kept the family safe. The mother agreed to go back to Norway for testing, in which she was declared to be completely sane. It was decided that the case was an "oversight" and Barnevernet apologised to the family. Regardless, the family stayed in Poland and plan to remain there permanently and they regularly take part in protests against the organisation.
https://www.tv2.no/a/8426843/
