Suranya Aiyar writes: “The blanket confidentiality under which the Norwegian Child Welfare Service (CWS) operates is exceptional in family law and extraordinary for a public authority in a democracy……In the age of WikiLeaks, the Norwegian tolerance for a powerful public authority like the CWS deflecting inquiry by pointing to a confidentiality rule is strange.” Reflections on how confidentiality laws could be are shielding the mistakes and bias of the Norwegian child protection agency. Published in 2012 in the Hindustan Times.
Author: suranya
What Does Gunnar Toresen Know About Children? by Suranya Aiyar
On the removal of children from a Bengali family by Norway’s notorious child protection agency in the famous Bhattacharya Case of 2012, Suranya Aiyar writes; “those who speak of racism and cultural intolerance only skim the surface of what is happening here. The question to be asked is what grotesque conception of family, of babyhood, of motherhood is at work here?” Published in 2012 by Kafila.
Junk Science Serves Junk Justice: We Can Do Better by Norm Pattis
Article by US lawyer, Norm Pattis, arguing that allegations of Shaken Baby Syndrome are based on “questionable scientific evidence”. 2005, Connecticut Law Tribune.
The Sounds of Silence: The Wrongful Diagnosis of Child Abuse – A Master Theory by Dr. James Le Fanu
UK, 2005. Paper by British physician, James Le Fanu on misdiagnosis of child abuse.
Shaken Baby Syndrome, Abusive Head Trauma, and Actual Innocence: Getting it Right by Patrick D. Barnes, Keith A. Findley, David A. Moran and Waney Squier
USA, UK, 2012. A peer-reviewed academic paper refuting Shaken Baby Syndrome theory as a default diagnosis when certain symptoms are presented by babies and children.
CAPTA: The Child Abuse Laws Which Could Destroy Your Reputation by Dr. Mercola
USA, 2011. Dr. Joseph Mercola argues that child abuse laws in the United States of America have created an industry of dubious child abuse claims.
Smacking and the Law – A European Perspective by Ruby Harrold-Claesson
A critique of anti-smacking laws by Swedish attorney-at-law, Ruby Harrold-Claesson, who is also the President of the Nordic Committee for Human Rights, which does extensive work exposing atrocities of child protection services worldwide.
Norwegian Child Protection Hits Immigrants Hard by Aage Simonsen
Based on his experience monitoring child protection cases as member of a municipal monitoring committee, biologist Dr Aage Simonsen argues that the initially positive process of utilising the welfare state machinery to eradicate social divisions, has created an ideology with scant place for difference and a demand for uniformity, especially by Norway’s child protection services which view everything departing from a textbook standard as potentially harmful for children. This often results in foreigners and newcomers to the country being singled out.
The Child Protection Services (CPS) – unfortunately the cause of grievous harm by Prof. Marianne Skanland
Norway, 2006. Article describing the systemic failures of Norway’s child protection services. This will give the reader an understanding of how problems with Norway’s child protection services are longstanding and pervasive; and that critcism comes from Norwegians themselves, and not only from outsiders.
The Curious Case of ‘Child Protection’ in Norway by Prof. Marianne Haslev Skanland
Overview of the Norwegian child protection services in the context of the case an Indian family, the Bhattacharyas, whose children were taken into foster care. Published by Pravasi Today in 2012.