Protest Around The World: Denmark

Thursday Letter

31th of October 2019

- Around The World Part 1 -

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s some of you may have come to know, on December 7 there is the second global protest against family-splitting child protection around the world.

The first international protest was only a few months ago, namely September 7.  There were people protesting in at least 11 countries around the world on the same day.  With this, Denmark's resistance to family-splitting child protection got its first real manifestation with about 25 people on the street in Aarhus and about 40 in Copenhagen.

In my view a significant manifestation both in Denmark and internationally.

I stand as the co-ordinator for the Danish participation in the international movement.

For several months now, I have been in daily contact with people from other countries working together in the joint group behind the global protest.  It has been very instructive and my image of what we are dealing with when we talk about family splitting child protection is constantly evolving.

At first I had a picture that it was all an ideologi which had derived from the rich oil country of Norway.  A strategy that was linked to a particularly unhealthy social structure that had emerged in the Nordic social-liberal societies.

However, it soon became apparent that the image was somewhat more nuanced and also complicated than that.  Particularly many conversations with the New Zealand representative in the group made this clear.  They have no direct influence from Norway in New Zealand, yet they have a situation that is very similar to that which has arisen in Norway when it comes to child protection and the exploitation of child protection as means of power and control against the population.

In this Thursday letter and in the following, I will try to give a guided introduction to the countries that took part in the global protest in September.  A brief description of the problems they face and a few photos from their protest.

Denmark

What is more obvious than starting with a brief description of the situation in my own country Denmark regarding childwelfare.

BBC broadcasted in the 2016 a small series centered around the Norwegian "Child Welfare". It was called "Norway's hidden scandal".

In Denmark we must say the same.  It's a scandal and it is hidden.  Indeed, to date it has not really been discovered in the general population and in the media in Denmark.

Norway has a full-fledged scandal with right now 36 child cases pending before the European Court of Human Rights and with a recent grand chamber ruling that, in clear terms, condemns the methods used in child protection in Norway.

In Denmark, much the same methods are used as in Norway. In fact it is no secret that Denmark studied the Norwegian methods and apply them  into the Danish system. Still in Denmark the problem whit the methods has largely gone under the radar.  Perhaps it can be said that the Danish authorities have been a little smarter in their application of these methods than the Norwegians has. Denmark has not been quite as extreme, as Norway, and thus the big media scandals have been avoided.

What happens is that the system overreacts.  Like when the body has an allergic reaction and react on harmless stimuli, as if they are dangerous. 

Children are taken from parents in situations where they do not need to be removed and they are retained in placement even if the problems could have been solved long time ago.

The legal system that is intended to ensure the quality of the case does not relate to the content at all.  They systematically uncritically approves what the authorities propose.

Based on the disputed "attachment theory", an underlying assumption has been created that, the child has to be protected against it's own parents.  An underlying assumption that in 8 out of 10 cases is simply wrong.  

This model has become lucrative business for a small group of people and it traps the citizen in a situation similar to the one described in the famous book The Trail by Franz Kafka.  The citizen's chance in this system is dependent on arbitrary factors such as luck, ore the preferences of case worker. Dependent on whether you encounter a case worker with knowledge and insight and interest in solving problems, or whether you encounter one who are young and insecure and are most concerned with avoiding being made responsible for mistakes.

The transfer of responsibility is symptomatic of the Danish system as a whole.  You are in a hurry to push the responsibility and blame onto others.  With "attachment theory" in hand, teachers and institutions can put the blame for problems that they cannot solve on parents and the more stressed the whole system becomes, the more pronounced the tendency to transfer the responsibility becomes. 

It leads to a dysfunctional system.  A system that systematically violates human rights without blinking.  A system that does more harm than benefit.

It is worth considering that Norway has been international and nationally criticized for it's radical approach when it comes to child protection. Denmark has not. At least not to the same extend. but if you look into the actual statistics you will see that Denmark forcefully remove  more children measured per citizen then Norway does. In fact Denmark forcefully removed more children measured per citizen then any other country that we can get statistics from.

Pictures from the Danish demonstration 7. 9. 2019