Linda

Child protection authorities won't let parents talk to their child in their mother tongue.
Be Aware why and stand up for your child rights!

First, what exactly is Language?

Language in itself is a special thing, a means of trying to understand each other. Understanding language is a whole other component and a challenge in itself. With language you can express all kinds of things you think, feel and experience. With language you can play, it reflects who you are and it is packed with energy. However, language is also used for deception and spells and can also create confusion. Just think of the story we are all told and which manifests itself in the phrase ‘Babylonian Confusion of Speech’. You say the same word but just slightly differently, in a dialect for instance, or just in a different context which gives a word or a sentence a different meaning or even charge. However, language is also regional which can go so far that in two villages 8 km apart, two different languages are spoken in the same country. Language is not just words, everything is included, your facial expressions, the way you speak, the speed, the music in your speech, emotions, experiences and so much more. However, what I mainly want to talk about here is language confusion and speaking, reading or understanding each other's language when you don't know each other's language.

Foreign and ‘Mother’ Language

Another or also called foreign language can be tried to learn, ‘master’ or ‘get into your fingers’ and you can get very far in it. Some language-sensitive people recognise the music in the language and grasp a foreign language quickly and can even speak a word at a high level. However, with the average person will only get to an intermediate level and only in few cases will they be able to express exactly what you got as a mother tongue in your very first years. Exactly, the language your mother speaks, which she grew up with. You heard this language even at the time of her pregnancy from you. Unconsciously, you made this mother tongue your own long before your arrival on earth. With this mother tongue, you can really express yourself with all its emotions. You feel, think and live the language as it were. Even when you are small, you know exactly what is said by your mother in particular. However, you also got your father's voice and language when you were still living in your mother's womb. This is the absolute beginning of your own language development. A not-to-be-underestimated development that many overlook.

Language is a basic means of communication for everyone on this earth. What makes it even more complicated is when we communicate only with written language. Here body language is missing which is a very important thing when we communicate. A wrong interpretation is easily made because you read things through your own coloured glasses and you have a reaction to that. Objective reading and especially reading comprehension is almost a profession in itself. Now that you know something about language, you can imagine when dealing with the ‘Child Protectors’ of this world that they are not out to make you understand them. They love to create confusion and what our own experience is that they are not linguistically literate enough and their communication is rife with errors. Never mind the lies, but that is another story.

Language Abuse by Youth Care Institutions & Youth Care Chain(partners)

Within the national ‘Youth Care’ however more so with the International ‘Youth Care’, people make delicious use of language confusion. This can be seen in all documentation and files. There is absolutely no intention to make it understandable for you let alone transparency. Some examples are that one consistently misspells names, dates that are incorrect, spelling errors, repetitions (is a tactic, by the way) of ‘facts’ and saying nothing. Difficult language sometimes so that you especially don't understand. All tactics to take you out of your own power. It is like they are trying to ‘cast a spell’ which they fail to do if you read carefully and understand. What shocks us most is how this youth care chain which deal with International cases misuses language.

We now know of a number of cases where a child with a different nationality from the country where the child was abducted by the youth welfare agency (mostly) uses language as a tool of power between parents and child. It is even threatened and blackmailed. How then, I hear you ask.

An example from my own experience: A Dutch child, abducted by the provincial juvenile welfare agency in Spain is in a closed facility. The Spanish authorities force the parents to sign a Spanish document for some kind of access arrangement however it is drawn up under certain conditions. The parents and the child are only allowed to talk to each other in Spanish and NOT in their mother tongue Dutch. The argument is then they cannot understand. If no Spanish is spoken then a visit or telephone conversation is immediately terminated. So in short: You speak Spanish with each other or you don't see and hear each other. We know from another case that the moment mother and daughter spoke in their mother tongue, the management of the juvenile institution cut off the telephone call. So several things go right here.

Language is used as a tool of coercion and blackmailed with it. It is a violation of child and human rights. It does not lead to a relaxed, as far as possible, situation which is in the child's interest. That one cannot understand is primarily their problem! Every youth centre has access to an interpreter and otherwise they can engage them so the argument ‘We must be able to understand’ does not hold water. And if you turn this around: You in such a situation don't understand them! You can already feel where the shoe pinches.

We are now familiar with three cases where this is used as a coercive tool so that a mother or father or both are forced to speak a language that is foreign to them, which is not their mother tongue which they speak to their child, in an emotional and difficult situation. If they don't, they don't see their child. That is what it boils down to and that is directly a violation of child and human rights.

Human and child rights

Below you can read what we found regarding the violation of these rights:

The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) does not provide a specific right that addresses the use of one's mother tongue during private conversations with prisoners. However, there are certain considerations and rights that may apply in such situations.

The 4th point is especially important when your child is in a foreign detention centre and you are forbidden to speak your mother tongue when you have a visit or telephone (video) conversation with each other.

Some relevant points:

1. **Communication with the outside world**
According to international human rights standards, such as the ECHR and the UN Convention against Torture, prisoners have the right to maintain contact with family and friends. How that contact takes place (e.g. orally or in writing) and in what language may be subject to national regulations and prison rules.

2. **National regulations**:
Countries may have their own rules regarding communication with prisoners. Some prisons may impose restrictions on the language used during visits or conversations. This may be for security reasons, for example to ensure that prison staff can understand the content of conversations.

3. **Supervision of communications**:
It is common for prisoners' communications, including telephone calls or physical encounters, to be supervised for security reasons. If staff do not understand the language, they may impose restrictions or require an interpreter to supervise.

4. **Human rights perspective**:
Although the right to communicate in one's own language is not explicitly provided for in the ECHR for private contacts with prisoners, it could be a violation of the right to privacy or family life (Article 8 of the ECHR) if unreasonable restrictions are imposed on the use of one's mother tongue, unless there is a justifiable reason, such as security.

### Conclusion
While in principle you have the right to speak to a prisoner, the use of your own mother tongue may be restricted by national laws and prison regulations. However, if there are restrictions, they should be proportionate and justified, for example for security reasons.!

Wanted
Are you or do you know someone who is or was in such a situation where this has also been used as leverage?
If so, please contact us. We are collecting information on this topic. Send an email to info@poraymarafoundation.org with ‘MoederTaal’

Continued
We are exploring what we as a foundation can do with this further in practice where families face such pressures. That they are not allowed to speak to their child in their own mother tongue. We will post more blogs on this topic in the future.