Norway Begins Adoption Process for 5 Children Seized From Christian Parents
Norwegian child services have begun the adoption process for five children who were seized from a Romanian Pentecostal family in November after concerns were expressed about the parents' Christian faith, the family says.
According to LifeSiteNews:
Norway’s Barnevernet, or child welfare service, has begun the process of adopting out the five Bodnariu children it seized from their Pentecostal parents Marius and Ruth in November, according to the children’s uncle, Daniel Bodnariu.
Bodnariu told LifeSiteNews that Barnevernet intends to adopt out the children, who range in age from nine years to four months, but that the agency must first “take away the parents’ rights” in a “fylkesnemdna,” or county council hearing, the date of which has not been set.
He stated that Marius and Ruth’s lawyer plans to challenge Barnevernet’s decision in Norway’s Superior Court, but that no trial date has been set.
Meanwhile, international protest on behalf of the beleaguered family is building via Facebook. Demonstrations at the Norwegian embassies are planned in 24 countries so far, including Russia, Poland, India, Slovakia, Denmark, Ireland, Romania, as well as in the USA and Canada, where rallies are scheduled in Washington DC on January 8, 2015, and in Ottawa on January 9.
The Naustdal regional Barnevernet seized the Bodnariu children, whose father Marius is a Romanian citizen and IT engineer working in Norway, and whose mother Ruth is Norwegian, on November 16 and 17, according to Daniel Bodnariu’s reports, posted online by Ionescu.
According to that account, the principal of the school attended by the two oldest children, Eliana, 9, and Naomi, 7, called Barnevernet and reported the girls told her they were being disciplined at home.
She also mentioned that the parents are “very Christian” and that “the grandmother has a strong faith that God punishes sin, which, in the Principal’s opinion, creates a disability in children,” Bodnariu reported.
According to the Christian Post, the principal wanted counseling for the girls, but Barnevernet took custody of all five children, including the infant Ezekiel, on grounds that they were being physically abused.
Daniel Bodnariu attests that the agency found no evidence of any kind of abuse and that Barnevernet officials relied on the stories of the two eldest girls, who reported that their parents slapped them occasionally, which he described in the Post as “light punishments.”
It is illegal in Norway to slap or physically punish a child.
The children were placed in three different foster homes, the Post reports. The parents can visit their infant son, whom Ruth was nursing when he was seized, only twice a week, and their two sons Matthew, 5, and John, 2, once a week. They are forbidden to see their daughters.
Read more about the November seizure of the Bodnariu children here.
Source: LifeSiteNews