How and why children are removed from families

According to the Family Code, guardianship authorities can remove a child from the family at any time – as soon as they consider it necessary. Child advocates are guided by Article 77 “Separation of a child in the event of an immediate threat to life or health.” However, the law does not stipulate what exactly should be considered a threat. As a result, situations arise where children are removed for a seemingly insignificant reason, and then parents sue for years over the right to return them home.

Why and how do children end up in a shelter? Together with human rights activist Nikita Sorokin, MK examined the most typical situations.

Drunk parents

If mom and dad drink and quarrel loudly, for which the guardianship received a complaint from neighbors, she is obliged to visit the party.

– The guardianship arrived and saw that the parents were drunk. That’s it, the marker worked. The child is in danger, deprived. They seize the child under Article 77, bring him to an orphanage and collect documents for the court. And then the adventures begin. Returning a child from an orphanage is not easy for ordinary parents, and for people with bad habits, although they are ready to fight for their children, it is doubly so, the human rights activist believes.

In the court of first instance, the parents will be obliged to eliminate the reasons why the child was removed from the family. First of all, stop drinking. You can prove your sober lifestyle with a coding certificate. But the court may also consider her an insufficient reason and require great effort: to undergo rehabilitation. This already requires more time and money. That is, the procedure for returning a child to the family becomes more complicated.

Then the court will oblige you to clean up the apartment. To do this, it is enough to simply clean up, but some judges require repairs to be made.

Thirdly, during the minor’s stay in the shelter, parents are required to pay child support. The debt accumulates is considerable: from 300 to 1 million rubles. It must be returned after the child returns to the family.

– All these obstacles cool the ardor. It’s easier for a drinking mother to give up and go into a tailspin again than to climb up. And here I see a big flaw in the judges. They are supposed to act as arbiters, but in reality they often “drown” the family, trying to justify guardianship. Why are they doing that? Apparently, out of bureaucratic solidarity, the lawyer believes.

Nobody wants to establish work with the family, win them over and work with them,” Sorokin concludes.

“I know of a case where a mother from Krasnoe Selo fulfilled all the requirements of guardianship for the second year, but could not return the child. It started when she called the police when the child’s father got drunk and started getting rowdy. Guardianship arrived with the police. Questions arose for my mother: she had a criminal record. The apartment where the family lived was completely destroyed, because the mother was obliged to register at this address and therefore lived here with the child. Seeing all this, officials decide to remove the 9-year-old son. He is placed in a shelter, his mother begins to fight for his return. She fulfilled all the requirements that were prescribed to her: she divorced her drinking husband, improved her living conditions, brought certificates from the clinic stating that she was taking care of her son’s health, and visited the child in the orphanage. But she still lost the trial in the first instance. Waiting for the second one. The child has been in the orphanage for a year now and really wants to see his mother.

Mental disorder

Children are removed from parents who have some kind of chronic or mental illness. It is believed that such a parent a priori poses a threat to the child, but this is not always the case.

– Often diagnoses are made not by qualified scientific institutes, but by local psychiatrists who do not particularly want to understand the problem. As a result, the mother is deprived of her rights, although she is quite capable of raising a child, Nikita Sorokin is sure.

As an example, the human rights activist cites a family in which a child ran away from home several times. Mom had a slight mental disorder. When the son ran away again, he was also taken to a psychiatrist. He gave him a diagnosis. At this point, the guardianship decided that the mother was not able to fulfill parental responsibilities because the child was “heavy.”

“That is, it turns out that it’s not even about the mother, but about the child,” explains Sorokin. – The guardianship decided that the minor would be better off in a shelter. At the same time, she will relieve herself of responsibility for this family.

Mom fights for her son’s return. At the request of the court, she is undergoing therapy. The child has been in the orphanage all this time.

Revenge

The removal of a child from the family can be initiated by a school, kindergarten, hospital, or employees of the juvenile affairs unit. Often, according to the lawyer, institutions use this right as a weapon of revenge.

– I had such a case. The mother decided that her child was being bullied at school and wrote about 30 complaints against teachers. And every time she sought a reaction to her claims. As a result, two teachers were fired, the director was given penalties, he is under control: in general, mom is nothing but trouble. But mom continues to write. In her opinion, the situation is not changing. And then the school also wrote a statement: to the PDN. Police officers initiated a psychiatric examination. Mom was found to have disabilities and her rights were limited. Basically, because she complains a lot,” says the human rights activist.

Wrong medicine

The medical institution may also be offended by the parents, and also trigger a mechanism for removing the child. For example, a mother took her son to the clinic, where he was prescribed treatment. But the parent doubted the drug and turned to another doctor or to a paid clinic. There he was prescribed a different course, which was used to treat him in the family.

“And at discharge, the district doctor finds out that the child was given a different medicine. How so? – the doctor gets offended and begins to write to the guardianship or the commission for minors that the parent is not caring for the child. A family can be registered as being in a socially dangerous situation. And then other circumstances may be wound onto this spindle, which in themselves would not become a reason for the attention of guardianship.

The mechanism for removing children from families, like any other government procedure, works slowly and is not good at reversing. At the same time, juvenile affairs units, guardianship, and then the court take a punitive side in relation to parents. If a guardianship proceeds to court, the judge will be reluctant to return the children to the family. It’s easier to leave him at the shelter. This should not be the case, the human rights activist believes.

– Officials say they are acting in the best interests of the child. What does it mean to act in the interests of the child? Leave him at the shelter? Or return to the family? There is no such definition in the law. It should be prescribed so that there are no discrepancies, Sorokin is sure. – I believe that the system should take the position of parents. Try to help and support, and in conflicts, act as mediators. So far this mechanism is noticeably slipping.