Norwegian Shannon Johansen commented:
I would like to share four «good news» stories about Norway’s Child Welfare System (NCWS), Barnevernet from Orkdal, Norway. I know of four NCWS cases from Orkdal where the children were removed from their homes, in my opinion, unjustly and without cause.
In three of the cases, the parents are close friends of mine & I have watched them go through the process & trauma of having their children removed from their homes & the legal battle to get them back.
In the last case, a girl was removed from her home on the Friday before Easter eight years ago – last week the mother was informed that her daughter, that is now 17 years old will be coming home permanently this Easter. That was the first NCWS case that shocked me.
Last month, we celebrated a father from Orkdal who had his son that is now 14 years old, move home on a permanent basis. By next week all of the children will have been returned to their parents.
Most of the parents are so exhausted after a process like that, that they don’t have the energy to sue NCWS for unjustly removing the children from their homes. In the last case I expect that there will be a court case against NCWS in Orkdal, and financial compensation for the injustice done. I expect NCWS in Orkdal will lose the case.
The last year the focus has been on extradition cases, legal limits to that of NCWS cases. One example of this, is in Adresseavisen (Norwegian Newspaper) Aug.31, 2016. Despite concerns from lawyers to BLD ( The department for Children & Equality ) there hasn’t been much progress concerning cases where compensation is due.
Financial compensation doesn’t soothe the trauma caused unnecessarily by NCWS, but it is documentation of wrong doing, a form of legal justice where there has been injustice. What I would like to see in the future is more cases like that, the cases where NCWS is found guilty of injustice and the victims of it should receive financial compensation.
Norway is still in the dark ages in those kind of legal matters. I won’t tag the lawyers involved in these cases, they know the issues.
I think it is important to sue for compensation in order to prevent the public authorities to go on with the same kind of abuse with their next victims!