Author: suranya

Children in Imperial Europe by Kaustav Bhattacharyya

Global child rights discourse often turns the spotlight on how children are treated – historically and in present times – in the Third World. But it is also educational to turn the gaze around to study the treatment of children down the ages in the West. In this article we look at the child in Imperial Britain, Germany (Prussia) and France – the three dominant powers of Europe of the time.

A case exposing the double standards of Norway’s CPS by Jan Simonsen and Marianne Haslev Skånland

A top Norwegian child protection expert, member of the exclusive 14-member national Expert Commission on Children, Jo Erik Brøyn, is found guilty of possessing and sharing about 200,000 pictures and 4000 hours of video showing children subjected to brutal sexual abuse. But the system appears to be very lenient on the question of this child psychiatrist’s two young children to whom he is the single parent. Is Norway’s child protection establishment reluctant to go after one of “their own”?

Children and Mothers Victimised by Danish Child Protection Services by Mrutyuanjai Mishra

In this article you hear the voice of children against the Child Protection Services (CPS) – two girls who ran back to their mother after years of forced foster care and a little boy whose cries for his mother went unheeded. Also note the way the child who resists being separated from his family is drugged into submission by the system. This is also yet another story of Western CPS preying on mothers fleeing domestic violence.

Recommended Reading: Article in Washington Post on How US Child Protection Laws and Policies Victimise Low Income Families

“Children at risk of physical and sexual abuse require swift intervention. Yet more reporting may actually contribute to making children less safe. A flood of reports from laypeople, which are less likely to be accurate (and are often focused on social issues tied to poverty, rather than actual abuse), thins out already underfunded resources, while turning the attention of caseworkers away from children who need immediate intervention.”