Priyadarshini Patil, Dhara Shah and Sagarika Chakraborty are among several expatriate Indian mothers who have been/were separated from their children by their host states, in a gross violation of human rights that affect the well-being of the mothers, their children and their families.
After her children were confiscated by Australian child services authorities, and the family’s pleas to have the children repatriated to India fell on deaf ears, a distraught Patil, a mother of two, working in the IT industry, was driven to despair. She ended her life. According to news reports, the Australian child protection authorities had been called in by doctors in Australia against whom the mother had filed a complaint of mistreatment when her elder child was admitted in a hospital for treatment.
In Germany, Shah, along with her software engineer-husband, have been separated from their baby girl, now 2.5 years old, who was sent to permanent foster care by Germany’s child welfare agency in 2021, after the parents were accused of having injured the child. Despite evidence to the contrary supported by expert medical reports, neither the parents nor the doctors accusing them of injury were cross examined. The police investigation was also closed without charges over a year ago, and the court’s own appointed psychological expert recommended that the child be placed under supervision at a parent-and-child centre. But the court ignored all this in its decision. The Indian government has intervened, asking for the baby’s return to Indian child protection authorities, but Germany is yet to relent.
