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Norway care system ‘like Nazis’: Czech President

The president of the Czech Republic has compared Norway's foster care system to Nazi Germany's Lebensborn adoption system, expressing his anger at two Czech boys forcibly taken into care.

Norway care system 'like Nazis': Czech President
President Miloš Zeman in 2013. Photo: Miloslav Hamrik/Creative Commons
The case of the two boys, who were taken into care by Norwegian authorities in 2011, has caused public outrage in the Czech Republic. 
 
According to Nettavisen, the children were removed from their parents when one of the boys told a nursery teacher that his father had “groped inside his pyjama”. No charges have been brought against the father. The couple has since divorced and the mother is seeking custody of her children.  
 
”The boys are in foster families that resembles Lebensborn,"  President Miloš Zeman told Czech newspaper Blesk. "Their mother gets to be with them for 15 minutes twice a year, and she is not allowed to speak Czech to them. The kids are in other words denationalised”.
 
The Lebensborn programme was a programme aimed at raising the birth rate of “Aryan” children in Nazi Germany. Unmarried woman, who were considered genetically valuable gave birth to children that were then adopted by racially pure and healthy parents.
 
The Norwegian child protection authorities have declined to comment on the case, raising suspicion in the Czech Republic.
 
Adela Knapova, a Czech journalist, explained to Nettavisen: “ In all other countries, there is openness when the state takes care of a child. In Norway, it is like a wall. It seems like the state own the children. It sounds like communism, and we have had communism before."
 
Ketil Moen of Norway’s Child Welfare authorities refused to to comment on Zeman’s statement. “The statement is completely unreasonable, therefor I don’t wish to comment specifically”, he told VG.
 
It is not the first time that Norwegian foster care has made international headlines. In 2012, two Indian toddlers were taken into care, allegedly because they were eating with their hands. In two separate incidents, a  Polish private investigator “rescued” two children from foster care, bringing the children back to their parents in Russia and Poland.

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