NEws

he 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.