Distinguished journalist Christopher Booker writes about systemic dysfunction in Britain’s child protection system, which is unfortunately being replicated by governments around the world, including India. Christopher Booker has been reporting the wrongful removal of children by British Social Services since 2009. In this article he describes the widespread commercialisation of Britain’s child care system, one-sided inquires in child protection cases that are weighed against the parents every step of the way, and the abuse of children in the custody of foster carers which is causing untold suffering of parents and children targeted by a child protection system that has become “horribly corrupted from the initial high-minded ideals for which it was set up”.
Category: India
Norway and Sweden – where inhuman rights prevail by Siv Westerberg
Scandinavian countries where governments, authorities and courts do not respect the human right of children and parents to a family life together
Part 2: Indian NGOs and Child Welfare Committees traumatise Nat children in the name of “child protection” by Madhu Kishwar
Rescue or Persecution?
Well-known academic, writer and human rights activist Madhu Kishwar continues her harrowing description of the mistreatment of children of the impoverished Nat community under poorly thought-out child and social welfare laws. Part 1 of this essay was published last week.
Part 1: Indian NGOs and Child Welfare Committees traumatise Nat children in the name of “child protection” by Madhu Kishwar
Well-known academic, writer and human rights activist Madhu Kishwar describes the harassment faced by Nat children under poorly thought-out child and social welfare laws. The Nats are an impoverished community of wandering acrobatic performers, whose performance traditions go back hundreds of years. Rather than uplifting Nat children, the Indian child rights laws along with NGOs and Child Welfare Committees implementing them are compounding the problems arising from their parents’ poverty and lack of work opportunities.
EU Plays Soft Empire Games With Global Child Rights by Dr. Kaustav Bhattacharyya
Dr. Kaustav Bhattacharyya presents international “standards-setting” as a tactic by the European Union (EU) for exerting influence around the world. He argues that child welfare measures and best practices are an important tool in the EU’s exercise of “soft” empire. Dr. Bhattacharyya cautions that we in India should not blindly adopt the EU’s universalizing measures in child policy as research is showing that they have resulted in discrimination against immigrants, marginalized communities and ethnic minorities.
What About Child Rights in Surrogacy? by Catherine Lynch
Australian lawyer and adoptee rights activist Dr Catherine Lynch discusses the ethics of surrogacy, making a child-centered case for the abolition of all forms of surrogacy.
Global Child Rights Conventions Misunderstand Children and Undermine the Family to their Detriment by Suranya Aiyar
The Trump Administration should take up the worldwide fight against injustices by authoritarian and anti-family child protection services, a cause already espoused by many in the President’s base. The threat of global child rights conventions arises once again for India as the USA mistakenly pressures us to sign the Hague Convention on Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction (Hague Convention). Contrary to what US consular officials in India are saying, the Hague Convention is not limited to inter-parental custody disputes. Going beyond parental custody, the Hague Convention grants powers to any “institution” or “other body” to make cross-country custodial claims over children. This would allow child protection agencies to chase both parents around the world to forcibly extradite their children. The Hague Convention is part of an array of anti-family and globalist regulations that aim to give the State supra-custodial rights over children. What Trump supporters in the USA say against globalism echoes with many of us CPS critics as we struggle to understand how the well-meaning effort to help abused and disadvantaged children went so wrong. If there has ever been an example of the folly of internationalism and unchecked state intervention in private life, it is CPS.
Lawyers And Parents Urge Indian Government Not To Accede To Hague Convention
Human rights lawyers and distressed parents across the country have urged the Indian Government not to give in to US …
The Global Child Rights Model in India by Nandita Rao
“It is for the first time in the year 2000 with the amendment of the Juvenile Justice Act that the State in India stepped into the lives of families…..committees have been empowered to take any decision that they consider to be in the welfare of the child, overriding even the wishes of the child and the parents…..I have observed that both Child Welfare Committees and Courts, endorse keeping the child with the family as the first option. The decisions are normally to reinforce the family rather then to separate the child from the family. However, unfortunately, there is no mandate in the law to suggest that this should be the first option. It is merely the current social conditioning of the decision-makers. I have also observed that often teenage children who run away from home, within weeks of staying at a State-run institution, choose to return to their parents, and are allowed and encouraged to do so. Acknowledging that often the problems are not irreconcilable, but circumstantial. It is time we reconsider the role of the State in the life of a child.”
UN Water In Dubious Company
A United Nations agency, UN Water, that is apparently behind the World Toilet Day project was caught with its pants down (or, as we would say in Delhi, its lota missing) tweeting an invitation to the notorious Ram Rahim….