Sometimes there is good news about freedom. But first there is bad news. A Christian family in Norway had their five children taken from them by the Norwegian Child Protective Services (NCPS), known as Barnevernet, for trivial reasons and placed in foster homes in November of 2015.
NCPS, much like their counterparts in other countries, has enormous authority and can wield it unilaterally outside the court system, without due process. The number of children seized by the NCPS has risen sharply in recent years, with lopsided impact on children from foreign families.
The NCPS charged Marius and Ruth Bodnariu with child abuse because of occasional use of physical discipline (which is banned in Norway). But lawyers pointed out troubling CPS statements about the Bodnariu family’s Christian faith, suggesting religious discrimination had also played a role. As in many other cases, the NCPS did not offer any counseling or other services in an effort to keep the family together.
The children endured medical exams; family members were interviewed along with doctors, and neighbors. The NCPS found no evidence of abuse. Still the children were split up among three foster homes.
As word leaked of what had happened to the Bodnariu family online and on social media, anti-Barnevernet protests erupted at Norwegian embassies and consulates around the world. While NCPS defended itself in the press, they quietly returned their infant son Ezekiel in April of 2016. But the NCPS pushed forward with its plan to declare the four older children permanent wards of the state.
After a final set of hearings, before a non-judicial “County Social Welfare Board,” which began on May 30, 2016, the NCPS dropped its case against the Bodnariu family because the board had apparently hinted that they would rule against them. After seven long months, the children will finally come home. And that’s the good news.
What apparently played an influential role in the board’s attitude was an international attorney petition recently submitted to Norway’s prime minister signed by more than 100 lawyers and law professors from around the world, and members of the European Parliament, detailing the NCPS’s “grievous breaches of domestic and international law,” and calling on the prime minister to intervene. This created a stir in the Norwegian media and among government leaders.
“The fact that it took months of international protests to influence Norwegian authorities to release the children—after they had decided to permanently remove them—is evidence of a serious problem in the NCPS system,” said Mike Donnelly, director of the global outreach for Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA).
The European Union, of which Norway is closely aligned, but not a part, approved a measure to create a draft report “considering to what extent the NCPS is violating Council of Europe standards.” The report will include recommended legal reforms for Norway and countries with similar CPS systems, a remarkable victory for European families “unjustly separated by heavy-handed bureaucracies.”
“Regrettably, Norway is not alone,” Donnelly said. “Most western countries have CPS systems that are growing into bureaucracies that refuse to respect the family as the basic unit of society. Too many governments are too willing to traumatize children and families over minor disagreements.”
Children are the heritage of the Lord, and unless parents give them such a training as will enable them to keep the way of the Lord, they neglect solemn duty. It is not the will or purpose of God that children shall become coarse, rough, uncourteous, disobedient, unthankful, unholy, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God. The Scriptures state that this condition of society shall be a sign of the last days. {ST, September 17, 1894 par. 5}
Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. Psalm 127:3
While the outcome in this case was good, watch for increasing pressure on families with children to conform to worldly norms as we near the end of time.