Mothers of the International Support Not Separation and Global Women Strike networks demonstrated outside the Indian High Commission in London and the Crossroads Women’s Centre in Philadelphia. They spoke out against the unfair removal by child services agencies of children of Global South families who come for work to Global North countries. They also demanded that Global North Governments stop taking children from citizens of their own countries, with the disproportionate targeting of low-income mothers and minorities.

I went on hunger strike in New Delhi. Dhara Shah, whose baby has been confiscated by German child services, went on hunger strike in Ahmedabad.

There were letters issued to the G20 delegates and newspaper articles by eminent citizens of India, including retired judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts, and former Foreign Ministers. They called for an international discussion on the return of foreign children to their home countries when they are confiscated from their parents by child services abroad.   

I pay my respects to Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, whose teachings inspire me in this struggle.

Martin Luther King spoke of a Beloved Community in which “justice would roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream”. The Beloved Community would not harbour such a brutal system as Child Protective Services, that only looks to condemn and punish.

Any kind of social intervention in a democratic society must be informed with respect for the dignity of the human being, and with compassion. These are completely missing in the child protection system.

Martin Luther King also spoke of Creative Protest. This is what all of us in the struggle against child snatching by the state need to do.

Human rights, which were evolved to enable the lone citizen to stand up against the state, have been cornered by organizational and even state interests. NGOs that are supposed to speak for us, only speak for themselves. They are only interested in invitations to big international summits, like the G20. They are only interested in addressing Parliamentary committees and other establishment bodies. They are only interested in implementing schemes and standards that are developed in the elite Universities and Think Tanks of the Global North, and advocated for by professional lobbyists and billionaire philanthropists with grand designs to save the world, but little understanding of the lived experience of, and the need for engagement with the people that they are supposed to be saving.

We have little hope from UNICEF, as this confiscatory and punitive model of child protection has been evolved by UNICEF itself, which only speaks to defend it. We have little hope from Global North ministers for children as they only speak to defend their child services, which function under their ministerial departments.   

So traditional modes of protest are no longer available to us; or are severely restricted. In these circumstances, we have to be creative in our protest. I hope that you will get ideas from what I did, as I get ideas from your work.

To all the mothers with taken children, I am here for you. The callous and senseless removal of children from their mothers’ arms is an atrocity against women that has no parallel in history.

I am here not only for the gentle Indian housewives that fall prey to the bewildering child protection systems of the world’s rich countries. I am with all mothers, even those who have been told that they are bad mothers. I don’t care if you are a drug addict. I don’t care if you are a prostitute. I don’t care if they say that you neglected or abused your child. I know the system is unfair, and exaggerates. I believe in the power of compassion, suffering and the human potential for transformation; for is not motherhood an experience in these things for all of us mothers?

Stay strong. Nothing can replace a mother’s love. Certainly not paid foster carers. Mother’s love is a gift of nature that forms the foundation of human society, and indeed of all life on Earth. It needs no justification, and nor must it be subjected to any man-made conditions. It is in and of itself a vast and inexhaustible resource, for your child, and for all of society.

Feminists must stop speaking of motherhood as weak or limiting. Motherhood gives every woman of every class and character a nobility and courage that transcends both wealth and education. Yet today, wealth and education are being used to stigmatise and repress motherhood.

Motherhood is one of the few universal languages that still remain to bind us in our humanity, in an age of massive socio-cultural differences everywhere. Do not shun motherhood. See it as a strength for women and for the world. See it as an ally in our common quest for a more just and kind society.    

The Global North has to stop imposing its attitudes and preferences on the rest of the world. This is not at all a question of moral relativism, but of humility, imagination and self-awareness.

There should be no intervention in parental care for vague things like emotional harm and attachment disorder. These are psychological theses that are not even part of the world view of the overwhelming majority of the world’s families.

There are many different ways in which life, whether for children or adults, can be valuable and worthwhile. The Western ideal of personal happiness has to be seen in context of other cultural ideals in the Global South, such as spiritual upliftment, communal solidarity and filial service and sacrifice.

Any intervention by the state for children has to fall shy of removing them from, or minimizing their contact with their biological families. No intervention for children can be any good for them if it does not take into account their family, and see children as part of a composite whole, including their family, community of heritage, culture and nationality.

This is only a beginning. We will keep working together. G20 Governments, if you don’t respect us, expect us!