The case of Maiken Alice

Maiken Alice first published her story in the norwegian facebook group "Barnevernet vil vi ha fullstendig fjernet" (we want Barnevernet completely removed). I am translating and reproducing her story with her authorization.

I think it is important to listen to the persons that have been under the care of Barnevernet, they can better than anybody tell us what was wrong with it, so change can be made for the children to come. Thank you Maiken Alice for being strong and stepping forward with your story.


"I will like for you to hear my story.¨

I will now take you back to a time in my life when everything started, so be patient, because this is a long story.

On september 14th 2006, a completely normal day, with my backpack on my back I go happy and content to school. The school time was normal, I had time with my friends and I was looking forward to come home to my mom again, little did I know this was going to be the day that I never came home to mommy again.

The school bell rang and it was time to go home, everyone else went home but I was stopped by to ladies that wanted to talk to me. I didn't know who these ladies were, when they took me to a room all alone by myself, but I understood who they were when they told me I had gotten a new family and that I have to move away from mom. I understood so little. In the next second they took me to the car and drove me straight to the airport. When I arrive at the airport I saw an image that even today is deep planted in my heart. I saw my mom sitting in the car and crying and crying. I go to her, she gives me a hug and kisses me and says that everything is going to be ok. She gives me a teddy bear that she has sprayed with her perfume. I cry.

One minute with my mom was all I got before Barnevernet took me again. I was placed on an airplane, to where, I didn't know. When we arrive at our destination I met my "new family", which was an uncle and an aunt I have never met. Then I get to know that I will live with them in Larvik,

LARVIK?! Larvik is many hours away from everyone and everything.

I felt so alone, but luckily my brother managed to be with me on the trip where I was relocated at someone else's house. I hold his hand, I was scared.

We arrived at the house I was going to live. We sat down and talked. What we talked about I can't remember, all I could think of was my mom. It was late at night and it was time for Barnevernet to leave, when my brother asked if he could sleep here with me the first night.

This was not ok, said Barnevernet, because I had to get used to the new place.

The first night I can never forget, so alone and so afraid I have never felt. With the teddy mommy gave me by my side, wet. Wet from all the tears I had cried. Days, weeks, months passed by, the feeling that I was at home never came.

I just wanted to go home, to my real home. Once a month I got to meet mom, for 3 hours. Some times was Barnevernet that decided who I had to meet, so some times I just got to meet mom for 1 hour, before Barnevernet pulled me to meet someone else they meant it was good for me to see. Every wednesday at 4:00 pm I got to call mom for 15 minutes.

I started at school, but unfortunately it wasn't long until the bullying started.

I was ugly, disgusting, fat and nasty. I was kicked and beaten. This went on for many years. When I told the teachers and Barnevernet nothing was done. In the end I had gotten enough and I started to ditch school. I used to love school, when I was living with mom I was the best in my class, but when I was taken from my mom I developed hate towards school. In the course of those years I developed anger and frustration, something that is completely normal after such traumatic experiences.

January 31st 2008.

The day my whole life would turn upside down.

After a hard day at school I came "home", I thought of my mom and I was so happy that I was going to see her again.

It was around 2:00pm when my foster parents came home, which was weird since they worked until 4:00pm every day.

They say that they have to talk to me, so we sit down in the living room.

My foster mother starts to cry. I understand nothing.

Then my foster father says: Maiken... your mom died today.

My whole world collapsed.
Everything I could say was: no, no, no, is not true. I cried and cried. I had lost my best friend in the world, my mom. She wasn't here anymore. How was I going to manage? I ran to my room, I cried and cried while I hold hard the teddy from mommy against me.

I was angry, frustrated, furious, but at the same time incredibly sad.
Angry at Barnevernet that took me from my mom, furious because I got to see my mom so seldom.

For some reason I needed to get this fury out of me, just some hours after this notice that mom was dead I put on my handball clothes and went to play a handball camp. To be able to run and jump, throw a ball hard against a goal, it helped. In my head it was Barnevernet at the goal, and every time I threw against the goal I used all the strength I had.

Now it has gone a week, and it is time for the funeral. To walk into a church where there is a white coffin with a lot of flowers was horrible. My mommy was there, dead. I was never going to see her again. I was never going to hear her voice again, never hear the words: I love you Maiken Alice, you are mommy's treasure.

When the funeral was over we had a wake at my aunt's. This I felt it was so good, to have my whole family together.

I got a few hours with them before Barnevernet pulled me to the airport again because I had to go back to Larvik.

I didn't get to have a day with my family after mom's funeral. That was painful.

After mom died I changed. I was angry all the time, I didn't follow rules, I ditched school.
At an age of 12 years old I was standing over the train tracks, ready to kill myself. Then I had epiphany:
I WILL GO BACK TO MY FAMILY.

The time passed and I became more mentally ill.
I was more angry and I did many more things I shouldn't have.
One day Barnevernet came and told me something that made me feel relief.
I was going to move. My foster parents had resigned their agreement because they didn't manage to take care of me the way I was.


August 2009. 
Part 2

I got to move, this time to a place called Hommersåk, in the outside of Sandnes.

Barnevernet meant this was the right place for me.
It didn't go long time before things were not great.
I had moved into the house of the most christian family in the whole Hommersåk.

Understand one thing: I have absolutely nothing against christians, but I do have something against they trying to convert me to christianism.
I do believe in what exists between earth and heaven. I believe my mom's soul is here, which my foster family told me again and again was just nonsense.

I remember my foster mother saying: your mother is in the coffin dead. The day that Jesus comes back she will resurrect.

I was 14 years old, and I didn't want to hear things like that. My mom believed also in souls. I got a pendant from mom, that you could use to communicate with souls. My foster family found this, and what they did was to take it from me and put it out on the grass, during a storm. That was supposed to clean out the demons in the pendant, they said. Then they threw it in the garbage. My own present from my now dead mother went in the garbage. I told Barnevernet about this, but again, they did nothing about it.

Time passed, still furious and angry things became worse. I ditched school, and before I knew Barnevernet came again. I had to move after one year of living in Hommersåk, the foster family had terminated the agreement.


2010
Part 3.

I was at school in Hommersåk when again I met Barnevernet, this time a lady and a man.
In the meeting room I was told I was going to move to Stokka, which is in Stavanger. This time to a care institution or children home, as some called them.

One week later I moved and I never looked back, in to a care facility. I met someone that lived there and we clicked instantly, she became my best friend. Everything was fine for a little while despite how mentally ill I was, but then things started to go bad. The whole thing started with a man that worked there. He would stand there and yell at me, he called me fucking asshole and he understood why I was in the Children Home: Problem child.

A lot of other things were said to me, and he had used violence against other kids. Children that were defenseless. I told Barnevernet and the institution about this, nothing was done because as they said: a colleague of them could never do such things.

We also had a "friendly" guy that worked there, he touched us in our thighs and told us how cute we were. But did the institution so something about this? no.

Time passed and it became worse. For every little thing the police was called and we were put in hand cuffs. I can, with my hand on my heart, swear on my mother's grave that much of what the institution told the police we had done, were lies.

With time I developed depression, and this turned into self harming and suicidal thoughts every single day. In 2012 the institution moved to a new building in Sunde, so everyone moved there. I didn't know that it would become the worse year of my life ever. I was still angry for not being heard. I screamed every day, I was so angry at everyone and everything. Nobody wanted to hear. The self harming became worse, and I was in and out of the psychiatric unit.

Then we have Christmas eve, a day I will never forget. After mom died I don't see the point of Christmas, so I wanted to be at the children home for Christmas.

And you know what they said?: oh, no, I couldn't be there because they didn't have people to work then.
And you know what happened?: with a bag, I was thrown out in the streets, during a snow storm, on Christimas eve, with no place to go. This is supposed to be a care facility. Do you hear the word "care" in this whole situation? no, me neither. And do you think that Barnevernet did something about this? NO.

I was so mentally troubled, I could not go to school, I could not work. I slept all day long. I had had enough.

I ended up once again in the psychiatric unit, just that this time it was going to be different when I came out.


2012
Part 4.

I was released from the psychiatric unit, but this time was different.
I was met by Barnevernet again and they told me I had to move because the institution had terminated the contract.

This time I was moving into an acute institution, and in this place I had to live until Barnevernet found a new place for me to live. This was 2 houses, I moved in to one, while in the other one lived other kids. And you know what? I wasn't allowed to live with them because Barnevernet meant I was too violent.

And now I am going to tell you something: I have never been violent. I would not hurt a fly, but still I was isolated from everyone else. I was completely alone in this house. No adults. Alone, lonely. I watched through the window to the other house and I saw kids sitting by the dinner table and having a good time.

I got a plate with the dinner leftovers later.

Nice, isn't? I had given up telling Barnevernet because they did nothing anyway. I wanted to away, away from this life.

I made my bag and I went to visit a "friend" one hour away from the institution. I had to leave because I wasn't being heard.

This exit I did by escaping turned my life into even worse.

A normal night with beer and alcohol, because we were going to have fun. My "friend" had some buddies visiting.

I got druk, and asked for a painkiller because I had a headache. I got a pill. Without seeing it I swallowed it. Not long time after I took the pill, I started to see double. I wasn't able to stand, walk or move.

My "friend"'s buddy took me to the bedroom because I had to sleep, he said... but he wanted something more.

I lied there almost unconscious, he takes my clothes off and then it happens the unbelievable. I get raped. I cry but I am not able to move. He gets done and leaves the room. Crying, lying there, I collect strength to get out of there.
I manage it. Out of the window. I get out of the house, go through a dark forest in the middle of the night, hoping to find a house.

Without shoes, a tank top and pants in temperatures below zero I walk about 20 minutes before I find a house. I knock on the door, crying, and there I meet a nice man that helps me. He put me in front of the chimney with a blanket on. He calls the police and the ambulance.

I was in a place where I need to take a boat to get to the city center. The nice man drives me to the boat. On the other side is the ambulance and police waiting for me.

I was taken to the hospital, where the examination was going to happen. It was a horrible time. Time passed and the case was dismissed because of the lack of evidence. Later on I got to know that Barnevernet had said to the police that I had probably made this up because I wanted attention.

I didn't made this up. What happened broke me. But I was alone, nobody believed me.


2013
Part 5.

After slowly but steady getting better, I was told again that I was to move into another institution in Våland.
This was just a few months before I turned 18. Soon I could decide on my own.
I moved in. I was placed in an institution where kids used drugs.

I am a girl that NEVER have or want to touch drugs, but there is where I get relocated. There was a lot of fighting, and once again, I wanted to give up, I closed myself. There was no help to get.

Finally came the day! I became 18! Now is me the one that decide, but what I thought it was going to be my best year, it turned out not to be.
I started drinking, every single day.
I had gotten my inheritance from mom's death. 150.000 NOK.
I drank, I slept in hotels and I took a taxi everywhere. Before I knew it, I had used all the money in a few months. I had ordered a lot of stuff on internet, on credit. Which unfortunately ended in me having debts for more than 500.000 NOK now.
No one was there to help me with the economy. Alone again. How was I supposed to know how to handle so much money?

in October 2013 I had been in a party. A few weeks later I felt unwell. Nauseous and with a later period. I took a test and two lines came up. I was paralyzed. I was pregnant. And what do you think Barnevernet said about this? I had two options: to abort or to have the baby and Barnevernet would take the baby from me right after the delivery.

I did what almost killed me: I aborted. Depressed.
I was so depressed that I decided to take my own life. I had gotten paracetamol and vicodin after the abortion.

A little drunk, I took extremely many pills, including vallergan. I was going to die of an overdose.
I got on the sofa, ready to die.
What happens next is unexplicable, but I heard some kind of voice inside my head saying that I must not do this. Life will get better. Wobbly I got out of the door and went to the hospital. I lived 5 minutes away.
Outside the entrance door I collapse.
What happens next is unclear, but there was a man that saw what happened and he contacts the ambulance. I remember waking up to many doctors over me. One of them says: you are not going to die. Try to stay awake.
I remember I got a hose down my throat. Everything was unclear.

The day after comes the doctors to talk to me, they said I was lucky.
If I had come any later, I would have most surely died.
I was hospitalized in the psychiatric unit. And once again came Barnevernet, despite I was 18, they had found a new home for me. I was not thinking clear, I was so gone. So I just said "yeah, ok" and fell asleep.

2014.
Part 6.

Finally I am on my feet again after being relocated to a co-housing community with my own apartment.
Grown ups came and checked on me 6 times a day. I wanted to have peace. Calm and peace without hassle. I still had a lot of anger in me and I started drinking again. Every day. Several alcohol bottles were emptied. Was I on my way to become an alcoholic? in 2016 I decided to move out and terminate any relation with Barnevernet. I moved in with a girlfriend. And for the first time in a very long time I was better. I felt better. I had to start working with myself. I was mentally ill, I had social anxiety and fear of death. Barnevernet and the institutions had destroyed my whole childhood and my life. And I was alone trying to get a better life after the damage the many people that was supposed to give me security and care inflicted on me.

In september 2016 I got pregnant again. This time I decided to keep the baby, whatever others said.

During the pregnancy I became a completely different person. I was happy. I started to love life. Instead of fury, it was love. I was looking forward to become a mom.

There were many worried reports from Barnevernet and many meetings, but I didn't give up. I decided to become independent, so I found an apartment to live alone, with 2 bedrooms.


on May 23rd 2017 came to the world the most beautiful daughter. Little sweet Juni Alice. My mom heart just melted.

I don't want to tell you what has happened with her, because it is too painful, but I can tell you short:

- Barnevernet (the one that was my case worker earlier became Juni Alice's case worker)
- I got to see her for only one minute after the delivery.
- I get to meet her 6 times a year.

I am now going on a case against Barnevernet. I am going against them with my case. How I have been a bouncing ball in the system, how I was treated and how I have struggled after that to get my life back.

I want to thank all of you, for taking the time to read my story ❤️

I also want to tell you that today I am fantastically good, I don't have anxiety anymore. I am unfortunately still struggling with getting out to get a job, but this I will manage. I AND ONLY I have worked with myself so I don't let Barnevernet break me.

Thank you so much again ❤️

Children placed in Barneverns institutions: a vicious circle of drugs and criminality

Gathered in Sørlandet

Written by Webjørn Espeland for P3 Dokumentar, on october 30th 2018. Please check his article for pictures.


Barnevernet used around four billion NOK last year in placing children in private institutions, specially in Sørlandet. Why is not more of this money used to help parents that struggle?

- I have set fire on all the places I have been placed to, says Aline (23), while the glow of her cigarette is blown often under her dark hair.

She was ten years old when her mother moved from Brasil til Østlandet in Norway, with her two siblings and a new norwegian husband. It was nice to come to Norway and see snow, she says. But at home was not everything as nice. The year after was Aline trick or treating during Halloween in her neighborhood when the police came. Barnevernet had gotten several worrying reports from Aline's school, and Aline accepted voluntarily to be under Barnevernets care, so she could have a few months break. It was not just her living situation that changed, then.

- While I lived at home, Barnevernet listened to what I said a lot, and they asked what would be good for me. After I moved into an institution was nobody listening to me anymore, says Aline.

When she was twelve years old, she was placed in a foster home, the fourth relocation in one year. Two weeks later was her new foster mother bathing naked in the house's jacuzzi. Her husband was sitting in the terrace right on the side.

- She said I just had to take of my clothes if I wanted. It is not normal to say such things to a child.

P3 Dokumentar has talked to the foster mother, that has had many foster children through the years. She says the episode has most surely happened.

- Yes, if you have seen the place we live at, you sill see that none of our neighbors can see us. I was naked in the jacuzzi, just like I am in the shower. That is completely natural.

Did you think how the foster children could react to your nakedness?

- No, not really. I was at home in my own house! But if I was taking care for a boy, I never went naked.

Aline wanted to move back home, but her mother lost her parental rights.

- After that I hated them and I just wanted to leave, but Barnevernet deny med that and said I had to give them (the foster parents) another chance. In the end I sat fire to my room and escaped from the house. In the outside I can look like a kid that had behavior issues, I am aware of that. But I think it was a reaction to a very sick system.

A series of neglects

Norway is in the top of the world on the list of countries that take the care from the families with coercion. Here in the country it happens almost 7 times more often than in Denmark.

- Norway uses more than four billions NOK on foster homes and institutions - what if we had used much of this money with the families?

That is the questions from Øyvind Håbrekke, the professional leader of the christian think-tank Skaperkraft. He has been state secretary for the political party Krf and had a four year period at the family and culture committee in the Parliament, with responsibility over Barnevernet.

Håbrekke is watchful to praise all the thousands of Barnevern employees that every day go to work to do the best for the children. But he points to what he means is a serious flaw in the system.

- There are no mechanisms in the system that guide the case workers to the question: should we instead use money in the house? the money comes first when the children are relocated in foster homes or institutions, he says.

He believes the trauma related to Barnevernert taking the children is underestimated.

- They separate families, they even separate siblings. Is not like children get placed in foster homes and they stay there until they become adults. Way too many get relocated to and from different foster homes and institutions for years. Often is a series of neglects. The only thing the children learn is that they can't trust anybody. 

Håbrekke also thinks that is important to air the question of how dysfunctional a home can be, and still work better for the children than the alternatives (from Barnevernet).

Research has many times stated that a child's issues escalate a lot in the institutions. Danish researchs have also stated that kids places in Barnevernet institutions commit more crimes. There is also a huge shortage of foster homes in Norway.

Last years the municipalities used around 1,3 billions in initiatives at home, less than a third of the amount used in institutions and foster homes. The Minister of Infancy and Equality Linda Hofstad Helleland says that the government also wants to help the families to a greater degree.

- 60 percent of children and youngsters that received help from Barnevernet last year, received helpt at home. But now we are making big changes in the arrangements for finance in Barnevernet, through the Barnevern reform that will come next year, says Helleland.

A vicious circle.

Alines story is of course not representative for everyone in Barnevernet, where many vulnerable children receive important help every year and foster homes where they thrive in. But one thing that is typical about her story, is where she ended up.

Because like a 13 year old child, Aline was sent there where many of Barnevernet children that struggle the most and make the most problems are sent: to Sørlandet. Many hundred kilometers away from her mother and siblings. It was her eight relocation.

- It was really difficult. I knew nobody here and I didn't understand the dialect. It was specially bothersome when I wanted to go home or I was going to escape to Oslo, says Aline and laughs.

In Sørlandet she became acquainted with other forced relocated teenagers, the ones that in 2010 became known as the "Barnevern band" and were behind more than 1000 crimes in just a few months. Even Aline was apprehended for her involvement in robbing a bus, where she was filming an acquainted that threatened the bus driver for money.

- I didn't think that this guy was going to dare! He was not one of those that I normally hang out with, he was short and a little chubby. So I was recording and shouted «oh my god!» when he ran out of the body clumsily with the money bag in his hand. Just a few hours later I was taken in an apartment, so that recording  ruined a lot for me.

The police confiscated her phone with the video. Shortly after was the video on the top news for NRK, TV2 and Fædrelandsvennen.

- Robbery and violence should of course never happened. But I think in retrospect that it was a way for us to be seen and heard. We only had each other to get support, and we entered a vicious circle, says Aline about the the «Barneverns band».

- I want to say sorry to the casual victims that have suffered and are left alone with fear after our actions.

Today is 33 percent of the Barnevern children with the worst behavior problems, those that are kept isolated, placed in Sørlandet. Agder has 6 percent of the populations. Infancy minister Helleland has no good explanation for why a third of the Barnevern children with the biggest addiction and behavior problems are gathered in Sørlandet:

- Not all the institutions can give a good offer to those with the biggest challenges. But we have private actors in Sørlandet that have a lot of experience with this target group, and that can be some of the reasons why also some children from other regions get a place in Agder.

The last four years have children been convicted for a total of five murders in Norway. Four of the murders happened in Sørlandet, while one happened in a Barnevern institution in Asker. The last one, that happened in Sørlands shopping center, was commited by a girl under isolation measures in Agder.

The private institution she was placed at got harsh criticism in the supervision report that came afterwards: The employees were under qualified, the staff was not enough, the girl was refused medical help and the law was violated when it comes to the use of force.  «(…) There was a lack of environmental therapists almost half part of the days (…)», says the report.

Plata and drugs

Aline escaped often from the institutions, even when she had to guards watching her. She had difficulties building up relationships with the staff, which could be up to 30 different persons that came and left. One time she threw herself linked to bed clothes from a window in the third floor, it was a stone floor under. She could walk for hours to escape, specially walk over the train tracks, where she was sure that the staff wouldn't look for her there.

One time that she escaped and got caught, she began choking the employee that was driving her back to isolation.

- I had worked so hard to escape. I just went mad. Maybe in the end you get that feeling: is either you or me - because the control every aspect of your life.

Aline, 16 years old and having escaped the institution she was at.

She has also threatened an employee with a knife.

- The staff is trained to get the kids on the floor, sit on them, twist their arm behind their backs - even if that hurts. I could accept to get a spank from my mother, but I didn't tolerate at a stranger grown up would take me down physically.

Aline was a lonely traveler. While the rest of the «Barneverns band» synched their escapes from the institutions, stole cars and went to the capital, Aline borrowed money from the same friends and took the bus. She went always to Oslo.

It seems like Oslo was a magnet for you barnevern kids, why?

- At that time was Plata, outside Oslo Station, so you came right out in the "community". That's where everyone goes, the ones that have no place to go to. When you are in a bad place in life, unfortunately drugs are the only ones that always have your back.

She has tried everything in the alphabet, she says. It was easy to get drugs.

Where did you live, then?

- There are many that help you when you are in the streets. I am a girl, and I was pretty cute, so there were many that wanted to help me.

Did you have to sell your body?

- No, it didn't go that far. I am really tough and I have such respect for myself, so I didn't feel I had to do that.

Today, eight years later, Aline is going to university to become a case worker at Barnevernet. She has also participated in a project for Kristiansand municipality, to prevent youngsters criminality. At Litteraturhuset (The Literary House) in Oslo, on november 24th 2018, she will, together with her mother and her last foster mother, tell some of her long but short life's story. The main message is that Barnevernet needs to listen to the children - without prejudice. 

WHat do you think Barnevernet did right in your case?

- Hm, not much. But they have at least made me the one I am today. A stronger person.

Do you think that it would have been better if Barnevernet had help you at home?

- Yes. I have serious doubts that I would have started with drugs, since nobody in my family have ever done that. It was at the institutions that I was introduced to drugs and criminality.

Norway's hidden scandal: A pedophile expert psychologist hired by barnevernet

A PEDOPHILE has been for years in charge of the decision that children have to be taken out of their homes for no reason.

An expert child psychologist working for barnevernet was in april this year found guilty of being a pedophile.

The 56-year-old psychiatrist, who is not being named to protect his children, had admitted downloading nearly 200,000 pictures and more than 12,000 videos showing the sexual abuse or sexualisation of children.

The court heard that some images appeared to show infants being raped by adult men.

The psychiatrist, who is appealing against his sentence, said he had been viewing the material for 20 years.

During that time the psychiatrist was appointed to the prestigious 14-member Child Expert Commission, which oversees childcare recommendations throughout Norway. He has also been employed as an expert by various local authorities across the country.

His professional licence to work has been withdrawn but the Board of Health Supervision said after his conviction that they would not be re-examining previous cases he was involved in - despite calls from some parents to do so.

How did Norway respond to scandal?

In June, the children and equality ministry told the BBC it could not comment on the case, and declined a request for an interview.

Now, after considering its "handling of this case during the summer", it has called on local authorities to look into the psychiatrist's past cases, and told the health supervision board to work out how that can be done with the involvement of parents. The case raised several issues that had not been previously assessed, it told the BBC.

Borge Tomter, head of child welfare on the health supervision board, said: "I think we are going to assess every case if possible." But he added he did not yet know how many cases there were.

The psychiatrist himself said 10 years ago that he had been employed as an expert assessor in between 50 and 75 child protection cases.

The Child Expert Commission, in which he was involved more recently, reviews some 750 welfare recommendations every year. The head of the commission, Katrin Koch, told the BBC in July that she had looked into some of his reports and found no cause for concern.

The ministry said no authority had "a complete overview" of the number of cases and "this challenge" was part of the review.

Please read the full article by Tim Whewell for BBC

THIS IS WHAT IS HAPPENING IN NORWAY, THE BEST COUNTRY OF THE WORLD TO LIVE IN, AND AUTHORITIES ARE KEEPING QUIET AND DOING NOTHING TO SOLVE THIS AND RETURN THE CHILDREN TO THEIR FAMILIES.

You might wonder if this is possible! well IT IS HAPPENING! it happened! families got their lives destroyed, traumatized children have grown in foster care for no other reason than foster care being a money maker industry. Humans rights are being violated every day in Norway, and you still believe that is the best country to live in? Think again! Please read and share, this NEEDS to be known and STOPPED!!!!

Norway's hidden scandal

August 3rd 2018

By Tim Whewell for BBC, please visit the source more detailed information, pictures and videos.

The UN rates Norway one of the best countries for a child to grow up in. And yet too many children, according to a large number of Norwegian experts, are taken into care without good reason. The conviction of a top psychiatrist in the child protection system for downloading child abuse images is now raising further serious questions.

It was a winter’s day, some years ago, when two child welfare specialists – a female psychologist and a male psychiatrist – knocked on the door of a small modern wooden house on the edge of the Norwegian capital, Oslo.

A lively little girl opened the door and greeted the strangers warmly.

But the girl’s mother, Cecilie – who understood the purpose of their visit – was much less pleased to see them.

“I was very scared. I didn’t want them in my house in the first place,” she says, remembering that day.

“I was really nervous that they will find something wrong. I know this is how the Child Protection Services take away children.”

The experts had been appointed to write a report for a family court hearing which would decide the little girl’s future.

Their visit followed years of concern by the Child Protection Service that Cecilie - a single mother - wasn’t looking after her daughter properly, and had rejected offers of help.

That day, she was right to be nervous.

The experts were highly critical of what they observed at her home.

They wrote in their report that “there was no natural flow to the interaction” between mother and daughter.

They said Cecilie struggled to keep the house in order. And they commented on other details that Cecilie believes they misinterpreted.

“Everything is twisted in a negative way,” she says.

“This was not so long after Christmas, and in the local store I had found some gingerbread which they were selling really cheap, for one Norwegian krone. So I bought it just for fun, so that my daughter and I could make some gingerbread men together as an activity.

“But apparently they thought my financial situation was very bad, because I had bought it after Christmas… How can you say a person is poor just because they buy cheap gingerbread?

“When I saw the report, I was so devastated. It was just all this negativity - negative, negative, negative. There was nothing positive at all.”

The experts’ report – based on information from many health and childcare professionals as well as their own observations – concluded that the little girl’s “development would be limited” if she remained with her mother.

The report said: “This is because the mother does not recognise her daughter’s basic needs and does not perceive the mental harm she may have suffered” while in her mother’s care.

Since then, Cecilie – a lean, anxious-looking, blonde woman now in her 50s - has only seen her daughter seven times.

“I have not been able to follow her development,” she says. “I just lost my daughter’s childhood. I don’t expect really to see her until she’s an adult.”

The recommendation to put the girl into long-term foster care was approved at Oslo District Court. The report’s co-authors attended as witnesses.

Fast forward to April this year, and one of those two experts – the male psychiatrist - reappeared in the same courthouse.

This time, though, he wasn’t in the witness stand.

He was in the dock.

He was sentenced to 22 months in jail - after admitting he had downloaded nearly 200,000 images, and more than 12,000 videos, showing the sexual abuse or sexualisation of children.

The court heard that some appeared to show infants being raped.

Norwegian police were initially tipped off that the man was downloading illegal child abuse images in 2015.

But it wasn’t until early 2017 – a year and a half later – that they investigated and then arrested him.

He confessed that he had been viewing such material for 20 years.

The expert hasn’t been named in the Norwegian media – to protect the privacy of his own children.

But until his arrest he played a key role at various levels in Norway’s child protection system - as an expert witness in individual cases such as Cecilie’s, and more recently as a member of the prestigious Child Expert Commission, which evaluates all independent protection reports.

His conviction puts the spotlight back on a system which has been heavily criticized by some parents – and by leading Norwegian professionals in the childcare field – for being too quick to put children into care, splitting families unnecessarily.

The disgraced psychiatrist has had his professional licence revoked, meaning he cannot work in the same field again.

But parents who’ve lost custody of children in cases he was involved in believe all his previous decisions should be reviewed.

“What he was saying isn’t valid, because of what he has done. His judgement cannot be trusted,” Cecilie says.

If he had told the judge (in earlier cases, when he was an expert witness) that he had been downloading child pornography for years, of course he would never have been appointed as an expert.”

The local child protection agency which handled Cecilie’s case points out that he was only one of two specialists who wrote the report, that their recommendation was approved by a court, and that their observations were only part of the justification for putting her daughter into care.

But Cecilie and other parents say his crime shows he was unable to empathize with children.

The presiding judge in the case, Nini Ring, commented in her judgement that he appeared not to understand the suffering involved in the material he enjoyed viewing.

She said: “The accused has taken exception to the most serious material, which he claims not to have downloaded consciously. The Court finds, however, that the accused to a certain extent trivializes his own actions.”

The judge continued: “The defendant appears remorseful, but reflection seems to have come only after he was caught out. In court he has explained that he considered he was not harming children, since he did not take part in the production (of the images)… The Court finds it serious for somebody with his special expertise on children to express that only now has it struck him that he has subjected these children to grave violation.

“The Court furthermore sees it as serious that a professional who is supposed to be the 'protector' of children and young people has placed his own satisfaction and desires first in this manner.”

Among many other child protection cases the disgraced expert was involved in is one in the south of Norway, where a large family has now been split up for nearly five years.

Inez - a warm, round-faced woman - is the mother of eight children.

Four are grown-up. The younger four were suddenly taken away by the Child Protection Service, or Barnevernet, in September 2013. She was arrested and put into a police holding cell.

“It was so strange to find myself in a cell and I just remember being so scared,” Inez says, trying hard not to cry as she recalls that day.

“The walls were coming closer and closer and it was becoming so difficult to breathe. It was like the air was becoming less and less… I never ever thought that I would be accused of something illegal.

“At one point I was thinking if I was mad, if I had in my madness been doing things I wasn’t supposed to do, had I harmed my family without really knowing it?”

There had been an allegation that Inez had used physical force on her children, which is outlawed in Norway.

She says she was obliged to act to protect one child from another, who refused to stop biting his sibling.

“I gave him the smack in order for him to let go of his sibling. It wasn't right of me to give a smack like that. But I was just saying that there was a sibling in pain.”

A criminal court acquitted Inez of the charges against her in 2016.

Inez doesn’t criticise the authorities for following up the initial allegation of violence. But she says they didn’t then listen properly to what the children were saying.

“The problem was that every question was a leading question,” says Inez’s lawyer, Victoria Holmen.

“And when you analyse the reports of what the children actually said, if you count up how many times they said ‘My mother was violent against me,’ it’s zero.

“An example is that they were not satisfied with the answer that the youngest daughter gave them when they asked: ‘Has your mother been violent to you?’ She said: ‘No, never. She never hit me.’ But they followed by saying, ‘How many times did your mother hit you?’ And that was when they went totally wrong.

“They had already formed their opinion of what this case was about. And then they questioned the children so that they would have the answer that would match their opinions.”

The child protection office that handled Inez’s case has been unavailable to comment on this. But the same point – that investigators put words into the children’s mouths – was made by the Appeal Court when it acquitted Inez.

Soon after that verdict, two of Inez’s children were returned.

But the youngest two are still in foster care more than two years later. This is despite an independent psychological report that praised Inez’s parenting skills and recommended that the family be reunited.

It said: “The experts find it impossible to believe that so carefree, positive and undisruptive children can come from the home described in the accounts that form the basis of the child protection and police actions.”

That report was disregarded, however, after it was sharply criticised by the supervisory body, the Child Expert Commission.

The Commission said the report was “explicitly biased” in the parents’ favour.

One of the two Commission members who made that comment was the now-disgraced psychiatrist who was also involved in Cecilie’s case.

The positive report he and his colleague rubbished was co-authored by two very eminent psychologists – one of them Reidar Hjermann, a former Children’s Ombudsman, the independent official responsible for safeguarding children’s interests throughout the country.

When I meet Hjermann, he tells me this accusation of bias made him very angry.

But I discover he doesn’t know that the expert who made the accusation has been convicted – because he hasn’t been publicly named.

When I tell him, he’s shocked. “When bad things like this happen, it’s important to look at what kind of responsibilities a person has had - and see if his way of misbehaving has been having an influence on the important job he or she has had.”

But there is no sign that the Norwegian authorities are planning any general review of cases the convicted expert was involved in – or that they believe his disgrace has any wider implications for the system.

The Child Expert Commission told me they have looked into the reports he did for them – only part of his work – and could find no evidence that he had shown too little, or too much, empathy with children in his judgments.

But the Board of Health Supervision, the body which has now withdrawn his licence, said it was not planning to investigate his professional practice. It says there is no information that the convicted expert had committed any crimes in his work, or any medical malpractice.

Other agencies – local and national – that employed him have said the same.

But for Inez, those reactions are just proof of the lack of accountability in a system that needs thorough reform.

She says she’s now been assured by Child Protection that they now regard her as a “good enough” parent, and that her two youngest children will soon be returned to her.

But losing them for five years has been a devastating experience for her and her husband, Knut.

Initially, she was only allowed to see them four times a year. And each parent could speak to each child on the phone for just 15 minutes once a month.

“The house was so quiet,” she says. “And you know how parents usually want the kids to be a bit quiet? It was so strange to be on the other side: I just want lots of noise, bickering.”

She blames the negative comments co-authored by the disgraced psychiatrist for keeping her family divided until now – and, like Cecilie, she also says his past judgements should be reviewed.

“It's like constructing a building which has a major flaw in their foundation. Do you let the building stand with a big flaw, knowing that at any moment it will collapse? Or do you try to rebuild it and make it correct?

“And in cases like this, they should do it, because the outcome is a tragedy when the decision is to separate children and parents.”

The criticisms of the Norwegian Child Protection Service date back some years. Two years ago I reported on the case of Ruth and Marius Bodnariu, evangelical Christians who were accused in 2015 of breaking the law by smacking their children. Their five children – including a small baby – were put into emergency care, prompting demonstrations by sympathisers around the world.

The children were eventually returned to their parents – but the family then decided to leave Norway. They now live in Marius’s home country, Romania.

In the same year, 2015, more than 140 professionals in the childcare field – lawyers, psychologists and social workers, wrote a National Notice of Concern to the government. They said that “a long list of children – the actual number is not known by anyone – are exposed to serious failures of understanding and infringements of their rights.”

They added that “when expert witnesses submit their reports and give evidence in court, we often see that the observational basis upon which they report is very weak.”

That open letter has now been signed by a further 120 specialists. Meanwhile, a family involved in a custody battle with the state has won a rare legal victory, gaining the right to have its case heard later this year at the highest level of the European Court of Human Rights.

And, increasing the international pressure still more on Norway, several families from the country have sought refuge in Poland to avoid the threat of care orders by the child protection service.

They believe Poland places more emphasis on keeping families together.

Among those now in Poland is Leen, the 14-year-old daughter of Palestinian parents who were given asylum in Norway.

Her father, Talab, a journalist, had served five years in jail in Syria, much of it in solitary confinement, for criticising the regime there.

Talab and his older daughter, Hiba, are still in Norway, while his wife and Leen are in Poland where they are now seeking asylum for a second time.

Hiba, who works as a nurse, explains what happened to her younger sister: “One day she went to school and she didn’t come back. And my family, my parents and brother were looking for hours as her phone was turned off, going everywhere, looking like crazy on the street and we couldn’t find her.

“Then, hours later, we had two child protection officers at the door and they said Leen is with them. They asked for her belongings, because she was taken under an emergency care order. She had told the school nurse that she had been physically abused at home.”

Leen was taken first to a foster home, then to another care institution, then to a hospital. Eventually – a year after she was first put into care – she ran away. She met up with her mother, who took her to Poland, where they have lived for the past year.

Speaking from Poland, she says the original allegation of abuse was made by another child at her school, where she was being bullied. Then at her foster home, she became depressed and started self-harming. She was treated with anti-psychotic drugs – and then other medication for the side-effects, which she says made her increasingly physically ill.

But medical certificates issued following tests in Poland do not confirm all the diagnoses made in Norway. Doctors there say she is physically fit and suffering only from stress caused by her experiences over the past two years.

“When we came to Norway, we thought that this was where we would live in peace and we would forget all the traumatic and sad events,” Hiba says, referring to the family’s escape from Syria. “But we have all lived this trauma again.”

“I didn’t see the growing-up of my older children when I was imprisoned in Syria,” Talab says. “So when Leen was born here in Norway, it was a God-given present for us. How could we have mistreated her? It is a very silly joke to hear this from the Child Protection Service.

“They behave above regulations, and you can’t win any case against them in the courts, even if you bring witnesses with you. It is as in Syria – the verdict is written beforehand.

It is unbelievable in Norway, something very strange in a welfare state – a Scandinavian state.”

The family says Leen was never physically punished – and they believe the allegation of violence was taken particularly seriously because they were immigrants to Norway.

“If you’re from the Middle East you’re automatically deemed to be abusive and backward,” Hiba says.

The Child Protection office dealing with the case said it could not comment in detail. But it said it did not agree with the family’s version of events, and it denied treating children from immigrant families more strictly than others.

One journalist has calculated, however, that children with a foreign mother are four times more likely than other children in Norway to be forcibly taken from their families.

Reidar Hjermann, the former Children’s Ombudsman, says no-one should be judged to be violent without evidence. But he also says: “When a family comes to Norway with a mother and father who have themselves been brought up with violence, then I think we should assume that we need to go to help this family to understand that where they come from, physical punishment is rather common, but in Norway it is absolutely forbidden.”

He believes “the Norwegian system should do something about its reputation” by improving professional competence in a system that he thinks is currently too decentralized.

And he adds: “One of the absolutely overarching strategies is to help children in families. To remove a child from a family is something you try not to do at all.”

Katrin Koch, the head of the Child Expert Commission which the disgraced psychiatrist was a member of, says one reason for the disproportionately high number of immigrant families affected by care orders might be that Norway is “quite a conformist country in many ways.”

She says: “It might be that the child protection services are not aware enough that there are many ways of raising children.

“Another point would be that Norway is a rich country – and the richer you are, the less consideration you have to give to survival issues, and the more consideration you can give to an optimalisation of how children are to be raised.”

Child welfare guidelines in Norway, as in some other countries, specify that parenting does not have to be “good” - only “good enough.”

But Katrin Koch says: “Maybe the level for ‘good enough’ in Norway is different from other countries.”

The Ministry of Children says it’s bringing in legal changes that will strengthen children’s and family rights. It’s reviewing some care orders – though there’s no suggestion that’s linked to the conviction of the expert psychiatrist.

Like other agencies in the child protection system, the Ministry won’t comment at all on his case at all.

But Inez – who’s now become a campaigner for family rights – regards the silence over the convicted psychiatrist as a cover-up.

She and other parents who’ve lost children are also surprised by a family court decision that the disgraced expert can keep custody of his own young children.

“I’m at a loss for words, for the outrage,” she says, “knowing other parents who have had lesser allegations and have lost children.”

Thore Langfeldt, a psychologist who works with sex offenders, and who gave testimony as an independent expert in the case of the convicted psychiatrist, regards that reaction as “moral outrage”.

He says there is no evidence to suggest that people who download child pornography are more likely than anyone else to commit other offences against children.

“Sometimes moral panic takes over and empirical psychological data vanish on us,” he says.

But Inez, who has been active in her community as a local politician and lay judge, says the case has changed the way she views her own country.

“Before 2013 I considered Norway as the best country in the world. And in many aspects it still is a good country. But if the system is closed and there is no transparency, then it is so much easier to sweep things under the carpet when things go wrong,” she says.

“There has to be a willingness to fix things, because it ensures that people can trust the system.”