Norwegian Ambassador- Inaccuracies in ‘Mrs. Chatterjee Vs Norway’

The Norwegian Embassy in India has issued a statement in response to the release of the film, Mrs. Chatterjee Vs Norway, starring Rani Mukerji. The film portrays the story of an Indian couple whose children were taken away from them by Norway’s Child Welfare Service on the grounds of bad parenting, leading to a legal battle for custody.

The Norwegian Ambassador to India dismissed the film as a “work of fiction” and expressed concern about its factual inaccuracies. The embassy’s statement emphasized that children in Norway are never taken away from their families based on cultural differences and clarified
that practices such as eating with hands or sleeping in the same bed with parents are not considered harmful to children.

The embassy also reiterated that child welfare is not driven by profit and refuted the claim made in the film that the more children put into the foster system, the more money they make. The Norwegian government highlighted that children are placed in alternative care only when they face neglect or abuse, and that child welfare cases are not easy for the children, parents, and the Child Welfare
Service involved.

The Norwegian Ambassador to India, Hans Jacob Frydenlund, emphasized that Norway is a democratic, multicultural society that values and respects different family systems and cultural practices. The statement also stated that there is zero tolerance for violence in any shape or form, including corporal punishment in upbringing.

The film’s storyline is based on a real-life incident from 2011 where an Indian couple’s children were taken away by Norway’s Child Welfare Service, alleging force-feeding and physical abuse. The case led to a diplomatic row between India and Norway, with the court eventually giving custody of the children to
their uncle, who brought them back to India. The mother had to take the legal route to regain custody of her children.

Staff Reporter