UK girl was forced into foster home where ‘nobody spoke English

[McFuu]

Why are you idiots stuck on food? It's food, not forced conversion. They don't want pork products in their house, then there won't be any. What isn't right is taking the girls cross.
The real question here is why is there a foster family that isn't at least bilingual in a predominantly English country? Why are children who aren't Arabic speakers being placed in this home. Why are potentially intolerant religious care givers given a child not of their religion?

Also for all the edge Lords whose parents "made you" go to church, grow up. You are their kid, they want to go to church, guess where you are going. When you want to go watch the Sponge Bob movie, guess where your parents go even though they don't want to.

[Deleted]

Hehe, nah, it is. It would be child abuse if it were a Muslim child thrown in a devout Christian home and forced to adhere to Christian household rules, so don't split hairs, it's awful either way.

The other way isn't child abuse either.

[Deleted]

Given the regulations that social services have to follow in the UK I can only assume it was a last available option situation. Normally an English speaking child would never be placed in a non English speaking household. The whole aim of foster care is to reduce the upheaval caused to children who are no longer safe in their original family unit. A group home environment sucks compared to a foster family. Unfortunately foster placements are as rare as rocking horse shit and more often than not its a case of the least worst option... which I would assume is the case here. When placements are constantly in demand social services aren't going to waste one with no good reason.

Everyone up in arms about rights violations and failures of services. In truth its a complete lack of resources and far too many kids who need them. In Hampshire childrens services have had massive budget cuts resulting in the loss of placements and services designed to support placements. And while the places to safely house children at risk of imminent harm vanish one by one the amount of children needing these services grows on a year by year basis.

This case is a brilliant example of what happens when you take money away from services. But of course the social workers involved will never step forward and explain the reasons this happened, to do so would be violating the childs confidentiality which is grounds for instant dismissal and disbarring preventing them from working in the field again. Instead the media will spin this as gross incompetence and the public will eat it up. Yes this girl is in a very poorly matched foster placement. But we don't know, and never will know, the situation she was in before this which prompted the need for the placement.

[Deleted]

How gullible are people, seriously. The far right, more like the far-fetched right.

[Deleted]

sounds about right in this scummy country & before i get an infraction, i live in the uk.

the fucking arseholes that run many of our social services, are a complete waste of space & should be kicked out of their employment.
might have guessed it would be some scummy inner city borough like tower hamlets.
i lived in the south east of england for over 30 years & the likes of left wing labour controlled tower hamlets & newham were always on the local news, mostly about how badly run they were & that was going back to the 70's/80's.

nothing has changed it seems.

[LMuhlen]

I see a foster family as a structure that has the purpose of emulating a family for those children, following the principle that a family is an essential part in the child's development. It is one of the family's responsibilities to develop morals and principals, and those morals and principals will be a reflection of the morals and principals of the adults. Religion is a big part of that for many people. As long as we are to support freedom of religion, you won't be able to bash on a foster family for including the child on the daily rituals they perform, because it will immediately backfire onto whatever religion you think is right.

That being said, I think foster families should be instructed not to radicalize on this aspect. Removing the crucifix was maybe the worse "offense" I found, but the circumstances weren't detailed.

Regarding the bacon thing, I don't see it as a problem at all. The foster parents COULD have been more accepting, but it is their right to not having people directly offending their beliefs in their own houses. It is not a strictly religious issue, a family of vegans could have done the same thing.

The language thing isn't clear. Are the parents unable to speak in English? Do they speak in Arab with each other only or also with the girl? If they only talked to the girl in Arab, that wouldn't be good, but if they do talk to her in English when actually talking to her, while mostly talking to each other in Arab, that would be not ideal, but not terrible as well.

Overall, I don't see anything particularly wrong with this scenario. It is lacking details, and it should be safe to assume that the child was in an even worse situation before. I think foster families are always going to be less than ideal, but it is what is available.

[IamStardust]

If you want to stop someone from eating something because of your beliefs then you are a piece of shit.

The issue isnt preventing her from eating whatever she wants. The issue is that its their house, they can set whatever rules they want regarding food: religious or not. If she wants to eat pork outside of the house let her. But this article didnt claim that, it claimed she wanted to eat it at their house.

But they are pieces of shit for being indoctrinated as children (most likely) and forcing their indoctrinated views on this girl whose own mother with her own indoctrinated views (unless she converted) isnt fit to being a parent as regarded by the state, am i right?

They are not at fault for taking her in, society as whole is at fault for not providing the proper incentives for families to take in children like this or providing adequate households that can care for such children. Social workers are forced to make these decisions when there are dozens if not hundreds more that need to be made with the same limited pool of options. This is an indictment on the social policies, not the families that actually are trying help for whatever their reasons may be, altruistic or monetarily.

Her own mother is at fault assuming there is a legitimate reasons for her being taken away from her biological mother (which no one has posted as to why).

[Deleted]

someones head must roll for this.
The welfare of the child is put above all other concerns when dealing with social services. Having a none Arabic speaking child placed with a family that only speaks Arabic is a form of cruelty. I am not saying that the family's where cruel to her, or that she was mistreated, but not being able to hear your own language in a foster home is a form of social isolation which is cruelty.

[Deleted]

Something itches in my head .. what if the girl was there to get groomed to be a sex slave?

This would be perfect, no one asks why the child lives there.
I think the police should take a closer look into it.

Wouldn't be the first time something like this with asian (pakistani) people in London.

[Deleted]

I wouldn't be surprised if the media is blowing this out of proportion (more money, right?). I also highly doubt that the family couldn't speak a word of English, that wouldn't get past the process of being a foster carer for an only-English speaking child surely.

The best part is obviously this contradiction at the start of the article:

"More recently, the girl apparently told her mother that ‘Christmas and Easter are stupid’ and that ‘European women are stupid and alcoholic’."

But... I thought they didn't speak English? How would she then know that Christmas/Easter is stupid and that European women are alcoholic as well... unless of course she's aced in understanding Arabic in 5 months.

There's definitely a lot more going on and this is not child abuse in any sense, just a massive mess by whomever placed them in those homes. I could imagine the same outcry if the roles were reversed (i.e. a 5 year old Muslim child being placed into a Christian home). There's no solution here and I'm not saying all religious families would act the same way either, some obviously would accompany the child as per the child's wishes.

I'm saying this because all of the Muslim friends I know literally do not agree with many things in the religion and take it with a pinch of salt. Older generation however tends to be different (and that goes for all religions).

[Deleted]

Something itches in my head .. what if the girl was there to get groomed to be a sex slave?

This would be perfect, no one asks why the child lives there.
I think the police should take a closer look into it.

Wouldn't be the first time something like this with asian (pakistani) people in London.

[Mihalik]

Pretty sure forcibly trying to change a child's religion could reasonably be considered abuse.

By that logic forcibly indoctrinating a child into a religion (raising any child in any religion) could also be considered child abuse.

It's worth noting children aren't born religious. Their parents/culture indoctrinates them.

On the other hand I do agree what placing a child in a cultural environment that would be disruptive and stressful for them is ill advised. Tho the interesting mention of them being encouraged to learn a foreign language doesn't fall into the category of disruptive. It is also worth noting that foster parents are often religious and often religiously conservative, but nobody minds as long as they are Christian. I'm just pointing out the double standard.

I do think tho that this situation was mishandled.

[Xandrigity]

The fact they took away her cross pretty clearly is an attack on her religious freedoms

[Easo]

Why do you still keep discussing this? It's obvious someone made a mistake and/or didn't care to check. It's obvious that the foster parents wanted her to adhere to Muslim standards quite forcefully. The kid is out and all that needs to be done is to get the responsible for the fuckup. What are you all still going about?

[LMuhlen]

Why do you still keep discussing this? It's obvious someone made a mistake and/or didn't care to check. It's obvious that the foster parents wanted her to adhere to Muslim standards quite forcefully. The kid is out and all that needs to be done is to get the responsible for the fuckup. What are you all still going about?

Nothing is obvious. Bits of it are conveniently left out of the article. There are pieces that don't fit together. It stinks of biased sensationalist media.

[Aurrora]

By that logic forcibly indoctrinating a child into a religion (raising any child in any religion) could also be considered child abuse.

It's worth noting children aren't born religious. Their parents/culture indoctrinates them.

On the other hand I do agree what placing a child in a cultural environment that would be disruptive and stressful for them is ill advised. Tho the interesting mention of them being encouraged to learn a foreign language doesn't fall into the category of disruptive. It is also worth noting that foster parents are often religious and often religiously conservative, but nobody minds as long as they are Christian. I'm just pointing out the double standard.

I do think tho that this situation was mishandled.

Except we're not talking about a child that does not yet have a religious identity. We're talking about a child that is presumably Christian unless she just wears a cross for funsies having articles of her faith taken from her.

[sarahtasher]

That's odd, that's almost like ''gud'' parents (read, white ultra-conservative people for the usual suspects) are not lining up to take up trouble kids.

Besides, what the usual suspects dislike so much about the education the girl will get ?

Your gurus at Breitbart find that teaching girls to read is dangerous, since it make them less obedient to their owners. ''You are a subhuman vermin that is just good to make mah sandiches and breed babies on command'' is the POV of all the fedora wearing alt-right alpha studs here.

[Deleted]

Oh no someone is "forced" to learn something about a different culture and gets free arabic language lessons mimimimimimi.

Isn't this the religion where a guy who married a 6-year old girl is considered the most moral man in the history of the universe?

[sarahtasher]

Isn't this the religion where a guy who married a 6-year old girl is considered the most moral man in the history of the universe?

Or the religion that considers it's a o-kay to let horny villagers rape your virgin daughters instead of your guest ?

(Hint : a town that preachers love to drone about. The sister city of Gommorah)

[Theodarzna]

Well as serious as this is the government of the UK has important stuff to worry about like unlicensed butter knives, and perhaps making sure nobody is critical of Islam online. Obviously this slipped through the cracks.