Over 2,000 people marched in Sibiu on Saturday in support of Bodnariu family and of the other two families whose children have been taken away by Barnevernet, the Norwegian child welfare. They hold placards displaying their support messages to Bodnariu, Nan and Radulescu families, to the family concept in general, expressing their outrage towards Barnevernet: “Mom has no substitute”, “Norway, give Bodnarius back their children”, “Family doesn’t mean State”, “Better to be a poor mom in Romania than mother whose children are stolen in Norway.” Most of the demonstrators were accompanied by children.
A delegation of Norwegian journalists was also attending the mass meeting.
‘We are stunned by the impressive number of people engaged in these actions. We want to find more about Romania’s reaction in this case‘, journalist Eystein Rossum said, as quoted by Sibiu local newspapers. Eystein Rossum is a correspondent for the political section of Mediehuset Bergens Tidende, a famous publication in East Norway and Naustdal.
According to the Norwegian journalists quoted by Sibiu local paper “Turnul Sfatului”, the Norwegian media doesn’t cover this case much.
The county council leader Ioan Cindrea, Sibiu prefect Ovidiu Sitteri, as well as more Evangelic and Orthodox priests joined the rally. Several people attending the Sibiu meeting came from Brasov and Arad.
A similar meeting attended by around 1,000 people took place in Cluj-Napoca, asking for the Romanian president and premier to involve more to solve these cases.
Most of the demonstrators were Pentecostal. They displayed banners with messages in English: “Norway, don’t separate Bodnariu family’s children”, “Reunite Bodnariu family”, “Norway, it’s time to give back our children”, “Norway, stop Barnevernet from stealing our children”.
Pastor Marin Pintilie asked president Klaus Iohannis and PM Dacian Cioloș to involve more and to prove more determination in settling Bodnariu’s case.
A draft resolution on the topic “Ensuring balance between child’s interest and need to keep families united,” mentioning the Bodnariu family’s case, initiated by the members of Romania’s Parliament Delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), was filed these days on the occasion of the first part of the PACE ordinary session.
“The motion for resolution notes that the abusive and disproportional interpretation of the child’s best interest principle can lead to the unjustified separation of children from parents, mentioning the case of the Marius and Ruth Bodnariu couple,” reads a Senate’s press release.
The initiators argue that in 2013 only, out of the about 53,000 cases reviewed by the Norwegian child protection services, in about 9,000 situations the children were separated from their families, which points to a system issue of the Norwegian social services in charge with child protection. The motion signatories ask the Assembly to urgently examine this deficiency.
Mass meetings have been held in several cities in Romania this month to express support for the Bodnarius case, in Bucharest, Arad, Suceava, Cluj-Napoca but also within the Romanian communities living abroad such as Ireland, Spain, Great Britain and Denmark.
A Romanian parliamentary delegation went to Norway about ten days ago, ‘imperatively’ calling on the local governor, where the Bodnariu family lives, to review the placement order for the children, allegedly disproportionate and seen as an abusive interpretation of the principle regarding the superior interest of the child.