tv [untitled] November 26, 2012 12:30am-1:00am EST
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you know i've recently been to stonier and brought in town a present i always bring him some presents candies sweets from his tonia. a russian citizen of this brief packing ritual means the weekend has begun. it's also a time for celebration she's going to see her son. at weekends they make me an appointment in their on saturday or in sun address now with the subject so i take the strain. overall it takes me one day to get there meet with anton and return. the three years you need under supervision and spend three hours together there are supervisors and an interpreter present at the meeting or on their behalf so they can write a check for us. there that it takes two hours by train to reach party on the west coast of finland from temporary in the south even this link fee journey
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there was enough to tell the entire story of three people i don't switch to countries in the mid ninety's i remember it. from finland they were in a relationship for some time before getting married they lived together for ten years then they divorced. after about nine months after palm and i got divorced and tun was born on october the second two thousand and three was followed his release when anton was a month and a half old poverty saved paternity status and then nine months later he became his legal guardian that ani said. and i called him to the court judgement i'm told was to stay with his mother during the week and spend weekends with his father some time later for my husband's attention began to trouble river so she decided to take a break from cover and go to russia. and they left. you know when we arrived
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i called parma and told him that we were in russia and that we wanted to take a little break for a couple of weeks and then we were going to come back he seemed ok about it but that very day i received a call from the finnish police quest me on what grounds i left for russia they said that the child's guardian reported to the police that he suspected me of kidnap of the rights of a ship. even though he is just nine years old. is all too familiar with having cameras pointed at him and he never fails to live up to mass media expectations this time is because an end to his finnish citizenship in public tearing the passport of his birth country into pieces. this is now this is for my mother this is for my father and this is for me. unfortunately children.
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my daughter and i lived in finland for two years i worked she started then i met my future husband and children of two words robert was born all the time we lived in a house of our own and dreamed that it would be studying english class. did join of english language classes a good school where staff paid close attention to their students and then one of his classmates shared the story with the teacher he said that roberts mother sometimes disciplined her son with more than just words levels will score up i wish i was someone to school to pick up my son's homework and while i was in school they came to our house to move him from our home in other words they made me leave on purpose once i realised something was wrong i rushed back to see a car driving all. those up. robert was down in front of
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a police officer and started on certain questions invited you here so we can talk some more so what is your name robert run till we go now i would like to ask you several questions about your life at home and your mother well sometimes we have arguments with my mom but on the whole everything is ok let's agree that you will tell only the truth i only tell the truth. when they bore me that the policeman asked me many times does your mom abuse you should be you up my said no she doesn't. know. after the interview robert was taken in by an orphanage you are mostly welcome to the intensive treatment care unit this is the place where children are living actually we have seven children here and this is our kitchen and this is the place where we gather
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every day to have meals break first lunch dinner us. sometimes scoop together. bake some things together and this is the place where we mostly see it when we are all together here and here we have our living room oh actually. this center is dealing with problem children it looks like a regular boarding school at first sight but on closer inspection there are some key differences. to which. we have. they need that's why.
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the methods used in finland to protect children from their parents a complex and often contradictory they became even more severe after the adoption of a in two thousand and eight giving unprecedented power to social work as. a report by school teaches or a complaint from neighbors any one of these is enough to bring social services to someone's doorstep. they have a right to come to your home any moment. they have any kind of suspicion about the well being of your children but they have a right to come to your home any moment you have to live in me and if you don't let them in. but you are on corporate and being on a corporative is also a reason to take the children. social rights activist. is well known in finland for his controversial views spoken critic of juvenile justice child protection system fascist. believes that shifting the functions of state to private companies is
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a flawed process. we have an industry that is. for trade with children so they the social workers and their close. friends or what they were they. lish private children's homes and we have in finland according to the official statistics we have approximately six hundred private private children's homes which are private companies and if they are allowed to. earn for every children that is taken by the authorities to the children's private children's home even several hundreds of yours per day. backman is an active participant in practically every child case associated with the removal of children from russian mothers in autumn twenty twelve he did everything he could to
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help honest as he is a good man. yes september two thousand and twelve the finnish social authorities decided to take four children from a loss to see a. woman living very close to him. first they took three children from her when she was pregnant and when she gave birth to the fourth children the newborn child was taking police to children's home where the child was five days of. the russian woman's confusing explanation very general picture to be formed. the alleged reason for the harsh measures was that her eldest daughter claims to have been beaten by her sudanese father on sunday for their fishel version was that the girl's father allegedly spanked her on the bottom of the full view which up on the left at arsenal. they confused two different situations decided resupplied at first it was me who addressed the social
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protection service complaining about the school going to do as children from another class child solicitously the girls suffered a concussion but they decided to shift the responsibility saying that he's going home. anastacio decided against reaching an agreement with the finnish authorities and appealed instead to media and. the case became an international scandal even though there are around fifteen fails in such cases recorded in finland every year being the last stop you met me being the last stop that we leave and then stop get married right. russian parents have declared a boycott the fifty finished goods for fifty kidnapped russian children they began . a woman's group called russian mothers organizes a rally outside the finnish embassy in moscow to support. they plan to boycott
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finished products and the campaign begins with the symbolic destruction of a nokia cell phone all of them which. we couldn't have imagined that the situation with the children taken away from the us to see would develop this way she hasn't been proven guilty in any respect and. sympathy i arrived on march two thousand and eight young and turn was kidnapped on april twelfth two thousand and nine and we got up early in the morning it was a holiday it was sunday we usually went to church on sundays the weather was wonderful but then the door opened and power suddenly jumped ten grabbed the child and pulled him out to the car. wash. what happened next to anton reads like the plot from a second rate spy thriller he was put into
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a car and taken first and petersburg where he was kept at the finnish consulate for some time then the boy was put into the trunk of a diplomatic and taken to finland the diplomat who helped cover was declared persona non grata by russia following the incident but ends on his father insists that the kidnapping was the only way to save his son. the diplomats help to me and i am very grateful to them for that and i don't but it simply had no choice and i was very much afraid of losing my son boy and i once again thank the staff of the consulate i tried to act according to the law but to no avail and i mean i mr. bremer was left alone in russia and faced with a choice she could come to terms with the loss of a son or return to finland and risk going to prison for taking hands on out of the country.
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of course these are parents who give children love to take care of them give them education in years but despite this it is provided by the law that the government has to support families. every week river meets with russian women living in helsinki region during a short seminar she explains the basic principles of local child protection systems that fellow works for a nonprofit organization that helps families who've moved to finland from russia. the following story happened to me whilst i was called in to school where there was a mother and a child and the mother said if you don't take her away today i will kill her but i have this mother was russian she came from moscow it was clear that she was not in the right mental state but the in the morning we came to social services and the girl was taken and then we learned that her mother was suffering from se closes and
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had been admitted to hospital in such critical cases a social worker i cannot ignore what's going on i was obliged to do what i had down here will i be on. that same evening ella visits yet another troubled family she's been working with them for the past two years. hello. is your mother at home. hello sergei i know that the folks we keep working with the a family. moves. through much and there are glad to see again today after a while how are you shooting law ok. how many actually how are
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things at school mine is good tell me about the school what subjects to like most mathematics i think. leon of smoove to finland for mr o'neill in two thousand and eight and it wasn't always easy fights broke out and there were problems with the eldest daughter who ran away from home the family was on the verge of falling apart and that was when they chose to turn to social services for help. so that things got out of control my wife and i did not know what to do we decided to ask the child protection services or systems and we received help immediately. social services here are in no way coercive they help both children and parents but more goods. as they make them and for a child to be taken from a family something really serious an extraordinary must happen that if
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a family decides to become a client to social services we assign a social worker to it oh squat to go to legal powers he needs to the family needs to discuss what support they need if this doesn't work then a child may be taken in. rubbish rangel i believe that social services decided to take him from his family far too quickly he spent two months in an orphanage and all that time rubbish parents try to prove that they happened to be used to their son but finish social services rarely change their minds. that there was because it was more than the shock you know most guys when my child was taken away from me. says my instincts told me that i had to save her hands so there was no fear nothing you know i knew that i would fight.
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fight until the very end. in the meantime social services began to look for robots future guardians. of the place where they even let the adoptive parents take a look at me they wanted me to become their first child but i told them. i'll never be your child i have my own moment. in finland foster parents raise a child only for a limited time at the very most until they come of age and there are unable to conceal information about their wards biological parents local authorities reimburse substitute parents expenses associated with caring for a child. from the very beginning that she was not our daughter some time started living with us began to visit all the time that has been living here she's been aware of the fact that we were not one biological parent
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stock school at different ages she has reacted to a different life course yes me giving us. better and her husband became yasmin's foster parents when she was just eighteen months old now the girl is finishing school i know my bit and i keep in touch with my biological mother i have her contact details but i got used to this family and it had become closer and dearer to me than my biological family that has such. as another prominent social activist fighting the finnish child protection system my son was bullied at school . saw this it was something although i tried to tell her my son was bullied and so. on the last month. it was about four months from this announcement that the social workers came to my
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home door and took my did run away it was not that this isn't of course. she says had child was given to her ex-husband who i knew had divorced because of his alcoholism and violent behavior and despite this he still managed to become his son's legal guardian. and my son. started to come to me to look for food. his clothes are moving. around and so. i had to wash them and he told me my father is beating him. and i wrote many official requests over several years she spoke to the press and even stood in local elections but the nightmare ended as unexpectedly as it had begun social workers that they just gave my children away back to me in the one night yes yes yes my lawyer it is.
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now you can have your back when the thing system has decided something there is not risk and then the banks it's not a mistake for them it's just how they want. the commotion anastasia's have gotten a stirred up in the russian media helped cause the authorities decided to return her children after they'd spent a month at a help center. is today if this story hadn't received so much publicity the children could have spent the time before the court hearing at an orphanage are in an adoptive family that might have been six are in ten months that was the prospect of facing if you will block the crime. however social workers promise to pay special attention to the russian sudanese family. they still have some concerns but since we have been arguing
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a lot with the staff working at the center and they don't know how to work with us they decided to let us go home saying they hope that a tower will be more open and it will be easier for the social workers to get on with us. but honest does he have failed to live up to the social workers expectations once her family was released from the center she began to prepare to leave for russia but local social services opened a new investigation and just as your story is far from over. in two thousand and nine and was brave enough to read. turn to finland knowing she was wanted there for kidnapping her son endless trials explanations and meetings with parvo followed and rimmer endured the process she now travels every week by train to the city of poetry on the west coast of finland where it takes ten minutes to walk to the orphanage. nobody when we have arrived in port at the local
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orphanage where my son and i meet under supervision every week or we meet in a room inside this building. the supervisor has the keys he writes me and closes the door that's why the cameras cannot be coming home. visits last three hours and told can barely remember the russian language so river has to speak to him with the help of an interpreter it's a good step the three hours passed by like five minutes i've just come and have to go away already. it's my son always waits for me and the meetings are always very very warm i would say. it's emotional for the both of us. we meet as if we've seen each other for the first time. and part as if it were our last. makes the last train home to temper she has no regrets about returning to finland even though
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she can only see her son for three hours a week in the presence of other people she wouldn't have even this chance if she had remained in russia. the child does not belong to us parents but rather to the state and the state thinks it can remove him once and raise him the way deems appropriate. it's possible that robert russell as experienced could have been very similar to remiss if the boy hadn't decided to run away from the often edge. doesn't she just they said they would let me go in four days but they didn't when the lessons were over that i ran her around his fosters i could tell my. son i called social services myself and told them not to worry as the boy was at
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home and well we're not giving him back he was very excited and i asked to give us the chance to spend time together but they replied that if i didn't bring him myself they would come to our homes for. social services eventually made a concession and offer the rental as ten meetings with social workers but the family only went to two because i had heard rumors that a criminal case might be brought against her she and her son moved in with relatives in st petersburg and after a while robert's father joined them. but just as well of course it was hard to make the decision to move to another country but in our case it was an assessor. they persecuted us in finland and they were not likely to give up on us so two years ago we had no other alternative like us though i took this decision to be together with my family my son and my wife. know the rundle as live in a small one room apartment on the outskirts of some petersburg but that doesn't
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matter to him she says her family is happy now because they are at last together. they watched us closely because we were we are only ones who did to rebel and fight for our child we are when they were interested in us not because they wanted to see if we did anything wrong or not. it was because we were just because who didn't want to conform to the system the system that is well established and for a long time has been functioning without a. the
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