In Abdi Ibrahim v Norway 15379/16 [2019] ECHR 914 [which, I confess, I missed at the time], the Court found in December 2019 that there had been a violation of Article 8 of the Convention (respect for family life) in a case involving religious and cultural differences between a mother and the adoptive parents of her son.

The applicant, a Somali national, had obtained refugee status in Norway in 2010, accompanied by her child born a few months earlier in Kenya. In December 2010, the child was the subject of emergency care by social services. He was then placed in a Christian family, in spite of the fact that the applicant had asked that he be placed with her cousins or in a Somali or Muslim family. Social services later asked that the foster family be allowed to adopt him, which involved the mother’s loss of parental rights and the prohibition of contact with her son. Continue reading →