Mrs. Chatterjee vs Norway reopens an important conversation on child welfare and separating families

In 2020, in a settlement in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, residents noticed that Pushpa’s children had been asking the neighbours for food. Their clothes were dirty and they were not attending school. Pushpa did not seem ill, but was disinterested in the children.

When her neighbours asked a social worker from a local organisation for help, he realised that Pushpa was struggling with a mental illness and would be unable to take care of her children for a while. Is it time to consider state care for the children? Should Pushpa’s children be taken away from her?

The Hindi film Mrs. Chatterjee versus Norway, released in March, reopens an important conversation about child protection services, how governments should intervene and what India could learn from such systems in other countries.

Based on a true incident from 2011, the film is about Indian immigrant parents in Norway whose young children were taken away and placed in state care for almost two years. Media reports have highlighted overreach by the Nordic country’s child protection services with cases reaching the European Court of Human Rights.

Research has made it clear that separating children from families and placing them in institutional state care does not ensure their safety. In fact, the trauma of forced separation and institutional...

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