The youngest child of Bodnariu family returns to his parents

The baby of Bodnariu couple can return to his parents, according to a Norwegian court ruling. At the same time, the parents have the right to see their two elder sons twice a week, instead of once, the brother of Marius Bodnariu told Gandul newspaper.

However, the ruling doesn’t mention the two daughters of the couple, who are now in the custody of other families.

The ruling can be appealed both by the Bodnarius and by Barnevernet, the Norwegian Child Welfare Service which took the five children from their family in November last year amid child abuse suspicions.

The children of the Romanian IT engineer Marius Bodnariu and of his Norwegian wife Ruth, nurse, have been taken away after the two daughters of the couple, the eldest ones, would have told that they were getting physical correction from their parents. At the same time, the Norwegian authorities argue that the parents are suspected of religious indoctrination.

The Child Welfare Service in Norway, Barnevernet, told an interview for the Romanian media that “according to the Norwegian Children’s Act, religious reasons may not lie beneath a child’s placement in custody.”

The five children have been placed within three surrogate-families, while the international adoption procedure has been recently initiated in their case.