Repatriation of little Indian Child from Germany to India

Kinjal V Shah started this petition

We are a Jain family from Gujarat living in Berlin, Germany where the father is posted on work as a software engineer. We are all Indian citizens, including our child.

Our child, a baby girl breast feeding child, has been in the custody of German authorities for the last 8 months (since September 2021). We need your help and support to help get our child to be repatriated to India under the care of her maternal family.

Our daughter was found with a serious injury which parents did not understand and took her to the doctor about. Parents' were being asked to explain the injury. Initially, parents themselves were confused & did not know what happened. Later the paternal grandmother informed that she had accidentally caused the injury while visiting us the child in Berlin.

The parents' immediately informed lawyer and the German authorities. The grandmother has submitted a detailed affidavit on what happened in the German Court.

Parents' are trying thier best to explain everything and prove themselves as good parents, but the system is very alien. They are facing immense challenges with language differences.

Even though the criminal investigation into the case has been closed after DNA reports were found negative, the custody case by the German child services - Jugendamt - continues. They are saying that they cannot be sure whether parents' did or did not cause the injury. They point to an earlier accident with the baby who slipped after her oil massage while being lifted for her bath into the tub. When this happened, social workers came to the parents' home and observed them with the baby and gave a report that they are good and caring parents.

They are saying that the baby is in a sensitive phase regarding "attachment" or "bonding" and should have minimum contact with the parents so that she can be permanently placed in a German family.

The case could go on for years. We are especially worried that our daughter should not be put up for adoption or other permanent care in Germany. We understand that the parents have to fight the case in Germany, which they are doing, but our baby should not suffer in the meantime.

She is growing up like an orphan in foster care for no fault of her own, even though she has extended family in India who are not in any manner implicated in the events that led to her being taken away from us.

She is losing her culture, religion, and identity. The German Youth Welfare Office is refusing to give her vegetarian food saying that only a non-vegetarian diet is nutritious.

Requests that her Jain heritage is preserved as far as possible are rejected by them saying that this is our, her parents' heritage, and not hers.

Even requests for visits to the temple on festival days and play dates with Indian children, which the Jain community here is ready to support, have been denied. Already the baby is not responding to her name when pronounced in an Indian accent.

We requested the child protection service that if the child is fed a non-vegetarian diet later it will be problematic for our child if she comes back to us as we don’t eat non-vegetarian to which they told us that even if we are found to be fit parents, the court may still decide it is not good to move the child due to the culture, religion and food changes.

So under any circumstances, it will be difficult to get our child back in our custody. We are very much worried for our child, so we are requesting them to place our child in the care of the extended family meanwhile let the parents' carry on with the proceeding.

Parents' are willing to give up their custody if that can give a stable life to our child with her maternal grandparents or aunts if not with us, as currently, she is liable to be moved from one foster carer to another.

In the past, there have been other cases of Indian children taken into foster care, such as the Bhattacharya case in Norway, and the Saha case in the United States of America. These children were returned to relatives in India while their parents fought the custody case in a foreign country.

But our request for our baby to be sent back, in the same way, is being denied by the German authorities. They are saying that India has no laws for state guardianship of children. This is not true as India is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and has an extensive network of child protection authorities across the country that can remove children from parental authority and place them in kinship or foster care.

The baby can be brought back to India under the care of the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) constituted under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act. The CWC will inspect the maternal family before placing the child with them and supervise her thereafter. This is what has been done in the other cases from Norway and the USA mentioned above.

Everything is now pending trial. But the trial date has not been set. Parents' have been told it will not start before 6 to 9 months, during which parents' have to do the psychological examination. So far they are unable to find a translator for this, and we do not know how well a German psychologist who does not share our language or know anything about Indians will be able to assess. The court has said the whole process will take at least 2 years.

Request

We want your help and support to help the little Indian child to repatriate to her own country, religion, culture, language & relatives.

We are trying to convey this message to the Indian Government but our voice is not being heard. We want your support to save the little Indian child who is suffering for no fault of her own.

With your support, we are confident our request will be heard by the Hon'ble Prime Minister of India Shri Narendra Bhai Modi, and the Indian Government who can then take up the matter and help the child to be repatriated to her land. Please help the little Jain Indian citizen so that she can have a stable life and return to her country.

Please contact kinjalvshah11@gmail.com for further details.

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