An attack like this is an attack on homeschooling, as governments may dictate how parents should educate their children and if it is not like they dictate then their children are snatched from their parents
What should have been a happy return to Norway for Leif and Terese Kristiansen became a father's worst nightmare when Barnevernet (the Norwegian child welfare agency) brutally withdrew his son, Kai, after they started education in home.
The family had been living in Canada, where Terese and Kai are citizens. They recently returned to Norway in search of new opportunities. But at the local public school, Kai, 12, became the victim of ruthless intimidation. School officials did not resolve the situation.
To protect Kai from further trauma, his parents did the most responsible and loving thing: they took him out of public school and immediately began to educate him at home. By choosing to educate their child at home, the Kristiansens did what the state or public school would not do. . . Keep Kai safe and give him a healthy learning environment.
As if the victim of bullying was not enough, on Thursday, February 9, Kai, aged 12, was persecuted and then killed in the snow by agents and agents of Barnevernet.
You can see an edited version of the video here (WARNING: the video contains violence against a child and can be extremely annoying). → video source
In a Facebook video of the incident that has already been seen more than 600,000 times, Kai's mother, Terese, looks in terror, screaming for help while Kai is pursued by police and Barnevernet. "My son is being stolen by Barnevernet in Norway because we want to go to school at home!" Terese screamed as helpless friends and neighbors watched.
You can hear Kai shouting "No!" Again and again while the police and a Barnevernet investigator try to subdue him and put him in custody in accordance with an order from the local authorities.
The 12-year-old boy was ordered to have custody of the state because his family chose home-based education. This incident adds to the problematic trajectory of Barnevernet.
According to Ray Skorstad, legal administrator and founder of Barnets Beste, an organization that helps parents who have arrested their children in Barnevernet, Kai's capture was a "brutal invasion of the family without sufficient justification". Skorstad added that "the main reason for taking the child is that he was not in school."
HSLDA Global Reach Director Michael Donnelly spoke with Kai's mother, Terese. "We expected that we would be welcome in our own country of origin," he said. "But I'm living a nightmare, I can not believe what they did to my son."
Donnelly has previously seen the overreaching of Barnevernet through his work on behalf of the Bodinarius family, whose children were kidnapped because the Norwegian authorities said they disagreed with the Christian values of the parents.
Donnelly said it is especially important for the home education community to support families in cases like these.
"An attack like this is an attack on homeschooling," he said. "Parents are the ones who have the right to decide how their children are being educated and what is best for them." Parents do not have to give a reason for homeschooling, but the Kristiansens were well justified in getting their child out of school. son of the school to avoid being intimidated. "
"Home schooling is not a justification for taking a child by force," he added. "This action was a serious violation of Kai's human rights and the rights of his parents, and we ask Norwegian officials to immediately return Kai to his parents, and we will do everything we can to get justice for Kai."
"So far, the family has only been allowed a two-hour supervised weekly visit with Kai, although a court hearing is scheduled for February 15, it would be a miracle if the authorities released Kai immediately. pray for it to happen, "he concluded.
Skorstad said that the family's decision to take his son out of school is what prompted the state to act. "The authorities wrote that the child needs to be in school for socialization purposes."
Barnevernet officials had said that the family "avoided" them, and when the parents decided to go to school to Kai, they took custody.
The Oslo-based family's lawyer, Trond Olsen Næss, has denied Barnevernet's claim, saying that the family had been in contact with the authorities, but that the agency had moved too quickly.
We ask concerned people and home educators around the world to sign the petition and to contact the Norwegian Embassy in their country to demand justice for Kai and recognize that home education is not a legitimate reason to forcefully expel a child from a family.
