Dateline: July 25

Dateline this week asks ‘Why are so many parents in Norway claiming that the state is kidnapping their children?’

Norway has a dark secret that is tearing some families apart. Each year approximately 1500 children are removed from their parents, with some families claiming that their children are being stolen – taken away without cause

This week, Dateline’s Georgina Davies travels to Asker on the outskirts of Oslo in Norway where she meets a couple who claim their children were stolen from them by the Norwegian government.

Erik and Natasha proudly gave birth to twins, only to have the girls taken away from them by Norway’s child protection service – known as Barnevernet – just hours after they were born.

“[Translated] We had four hours with the girls, then Barnevernet came and took them away,” Erik tells Dateline

The twins were placed in foster care with plans for them to be permanently adopted by another family.

Natasha was told the reason Barnevernet took her girls away was because she had been diagnosed as mentally disabled when she was younger.

Having never been formally diagnosed, and due to a fraudulent claim Natasha’s adoptive mother made in order to receive additional welfare payments, Natasha was determined to prove she was fit to parent. She hired a psychologist in order to prove that she had no intellectual disability – something she was successful in doing.

Barnevernet dropped the case and the 7 month old twin girls were returned to Natasha and Erik on the condition that their parenting skills would be monitored at an institution.

Georgina also meets a group of parents who claim they’re not even being given the opportunity to prove their case. One of the parents tells her,“[Translated] We didn’t even have a chance to prove if we were good parents or bad parents, she was taken at 2 days old for fear of future neglect.”

Georgina also speaks to a government insider, turned whistle blower, who previously worked as a psychologist for Barnevernet.

He tells Dateline, “I have had myself personal cases where I see that the government has taken the child away without good reason. It is traumatising for the children and traumatising for the family…So what shall we call that? They are stolen children of course.”

Also speaking to Anders Henriksen, the head of section at the Norwegian Directorate for Children, Youth and Family Affairs, whose Ministry is responsible for Barnevernet, he tells Georgina, “We talk to many kids who have had a history in the child welfare services and their main feedback to us is why didn’t you intervene earlier on? So that’s the other side of this story.”

Tuesday 26 July at 9.30pm on SBS.