The Child Protection Service of Norway

The Norwegian court has sentenced the Indian couple, Chandrasekhar Vallabhaneni and Anupama, for 18 and 15 months’ imprisonment respectively for alleged maltreatment of their 7 year old son. The prosecution case is that the child was constantly abused on one issue or other starting from years back and subjected to constant reprimands, flogging with belt and burning his legs and tongue with hot metal objects.

   

This is a 2^nd case of charging Indian couples for abuse of children in Norway. The first case ended almost in the separation of the couple and it is not fully clear whether the child’s mother had any problems earlier or whether it was from the mental shock when the children were snatched from her forcefully. Norway alleged that the mother was not normal.

 Norway considers children as their valued citizens and takes a pro-active role in protecting them. The responsibility of child protection is entrusted with the ‘child protection service’ under the Municipality. The teachers, Doctors, nurses etc who get in touch with children constantly are advised to report abuse of children to the Municipal child protection service. Once they get a report they investigate the matter thoroughly and decide the course of action to take. In certain cases an advice and guidance would be enough. In cases of constant flogging or other abuses the service men take away the child and entrust with a foster mother simultaneously charging the couple for abuse.

In the case of the unfortunate couple the right course for them to straighten out  their son from his pranks was to approach the child protection service and they would have arranged a psychiatrist to attend the child. In this case the child wetted in his pants in school bus and knowing this his father reprimanded that he would be sent back to India if he did that again. The poor child fearing about his father's warning told his class teacher about it. The class teacher must have probed furher his life at home and he told his woes. The class teacher informed it the C P S.

 Living in Norway and knowing their strict rules of child protection, it was fate that Chandrasekhar has fallen prey to the system.

It is not known whether the entire welfare system is functioning true to its letter and spirit or  the individual vagaries  of its service men affect the up keep and comfort of the children in their custody. Any way the concept of child protection from abuse is a noble endeavor and no nation in the world has similar welfare system for children.

When the parents themselves abuse their children who will look after them?  Norway’s child protection service emerged from that thought and the State arranged Machinery to look in to it. It has to be assumed that the overall functioning of the is satisfactory because Norway is a country with high ‘human development index’ and child welfare is an important parameter in calculating the H D I. However there are complaints about the functioning of C P S.  For example,while Norway preach the importance of children living with their parents, the child protection people have little qualms in snatching away children from the custody of parents on silly charges..

 The present case of snatching child from the parental custody and sentencing parents for imprisonment for over a year is an extreme case.  Why the problem could not have been solved by properly warning the couple and explaining to them the consequences,  is eluding a convincing answer.