COMMUNIQUÉ
to THE 2001
WORLD CONGRESS ON FAMILY LAW AND THE RIGHTS OF CHILDREN AND YOUTH
THE 2001 WORLD
CONGRESS ON FAMILY LAW AND THE RIGHTS OF CHILDREN AND YOUTH MUST KNOW
IN the Nordic
countries - each year, millions of crowns are squandered and thousands of
innocent families are needlessly wrecked by dishonest social workers,
incompetent child protection officers and secretive administrative (family)
courts.
The Nordic Committee for Human Rights - NCHR - For the protection of
Family Rights in the Nordic countries is an international organisation
comprising of
What is the NCHR?
The Nordic Committee for Human Rights - NCHR - is an international,
non-governmental organisation, free from politics and religion. It aims to:
* Strengthen respect for basic human rights and fundamental freedoms in the
Nordic countries, based upon:
· The UN Declaration of Human Rights;
· The European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and
Fundamental Freedoms;
· The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
* Act resolutely to ensure that civil servants who are found guilty of abuse of
power or of violating their fellow citizen's private and family life be brought
to justice or before disciplinary bodies.
* To create public
opinion in order to bring about changes in the present policies whereby
residents in the Nordic countries appear to suffer unnecessary interference in
their private and family life.
* Increase the rights and freedoms of private individuals and their families.
In pursuance of these aims the NCHR works with cases where children are being
or have been removed, and are being kept from their families unnecessarily.
We try to provide help and advice for:
* Children who are being abused whilst in the care of the social authorities;
* Parents wrongly accused of offences against their children;
* Grandparents unfairly deprived of contact with their grandchildren by the
social services;
* Any parents or children who need an intermediary when dealing with childcare
professionals.
* Parents who, having placed their children in care on a voluntary and short-term
basis, find that they are unable to get them back again (a too frequent
occurrence when a single parent has a temporary health or other problem).
STATEMENT OF FACTS
1 - In the Nordic countries each year, thousands of caring and
totally innocent families are NEEDLESSLY destroyed by the States' well
intentioned but disastrous child care procedures.
2 - In the Nordic countries each year, millions of crowns are squandered
by dishonest and poorly supervised social workers inventing reasons to NEEDLESSLY
take children into 'care'. The police and courts turn a blind eye to concealed
adoptions and illegal trading with children.
3 - In the Nordic countries each year the States are NEEDLESSLY creating
thousands of juvenile delinquents who NEEDLESSLY grow up to be hardened
criminals.
4 - In the Nordic countries social services, today, are the most
dangerous threat to private and family life our countries have ever known. The
child-care systems in the Nordic countries must be overhauled as a matter of priority
and an entirely new approach to procedures must be adopted.
· Many child care authorities fail to carry out proper checks on foster
parents.
· Few children in care complete their secondary education. Some are even
deprived of obligatory primary education and are mistakenly - or purposely -
labelled by the social services as being retarded.
· Children in care are far more likely to be abused than those living at
home.
· Events similar to Bjugn (
· The Administrative Courts are bogged down with
thousands of trumped-up cases brought by incompetent social workers fighting
private battles against "unqualified parents who foolishly think they
know best." Many social workers, because of their schooling, regard
the family as being basically dangerous and an impediment for the development
of the child.
· A medical condition known as ADD-ADHD is responsible
for a considerable amount of juvenile crime. Some child-care authorities
recognise the condition but they prescribe the wrong remedy: the children are
taken into 'care' in the mistaken belief that they are being 'emotionally
abused' by their parents ... their first steps to a life of crime. In the
Nordic countries each year, parents try to reclaim their children who have been
abducted by the social authorities and flee to other countries.
· At least 50 % of the adult population know at least
one competent family that has been needlessly wrecked by incompetent or
dishonest social workers, aided and abetted by the Administrative Courts. For
this reason, hundreds of thousands of parents are terrified of approaching the
social services for help - even when they are desperate for the assistance that
properly run social authorities should be able to offer.
· The press, radio and television have failed to publish
or to follow up systematically the thousands of accounts of social services
involvement where things have gone drastically wrong - due to the activities of
the social workers - and where the victimisation of caring families is
Orwellian and almost beyond belief.
· In the Nordic countries today, a lot of people have
lost confidence in the social services. Those who still believe that the Nordic
states have the right formula for protecting children at risk are completely
out of touch with reality. The truth is that the present systems in the Nordic
countries are woefully inadequate and are, in fact, responsible for more abused
children than any other source of abuse.
· The European Court of Human Rights declared
admissible the complaint of Chief Dr. Bernt Lindelöf, (C.L., B.L., E.L. and H.L.
against Sweden) who was accused by the social services of sexually abusing
his daughter who was suffering from Rhett’s syndrome. The handicapped child was
unnecessarily separated from her family and placed in foster care. The
Administrative Courts all found in favour of the social workers' actions
against the family. On
· The
European Court of Human Rights found
The verdicts of the European Court of Human Rights have not changed the
practices of the social services and the Administrative Courts in the Nordic
countries.
Family abuse BY THE NORDIC STATES is a breach of the European Convention on
Human Rights. Unnecessary interventions into people's private and family lives
are not necessary in civilised, democratic societies (Article 8).
Family abuse BY THE NORDIC STATES is a breach of the UN Convention on
the Rights of the Child. Children have the right to their families and the
right to be protected from economic exploitation. (Articles 16 and 32).
Family abuse BY THE NORDIC STATES is therefore not acceptable!
The NCHR
hereby call upon The
2001 World Congress On Family Law And The Rights Of Children And Youth to demand that the governments of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden
must adopt the principles governing family life in the majority of the European
nations and the world at large where Family - the cornerstone of society - is
protected by law and the principles of closeness and subsidiarity are
guidelines for social work.
Olofstorp, September 14, 2001
Ruby Harrold-Claesson
Attorney-at-law
President of the NCHR
Board@nkmr.org