Children torn between two people, two homelands, two cultures
A Six year old Sara Barao is home from Portugal. At four Sara’s childhood
turned into a nightmare as her
Portuguese father and Czech mother broke up and fought a stormy battle over
custody rights. When her mother lost the court case two years ago - she and
Sara went into hiding. But, at the end of 2006 the authorities caught up with
them and Sara underwent the traumatic experience of having her parents
physically fight over her in the street. She was taken to Portugal and it
seemed that the case was closed. But then the news came that Sara had stopped
eating and communicating. Her mother was quickly summoned and then her parents reached an agreement and she returned
to the Czech Republic with her mother.
B Sara is just one of many children who are caught in the middle of an
ugly international custody battle. But more than anyone else her plight has evoked sympathy and opened
up questions about the work of Czech institutions in protecting children’s
rights. The director of the Children at Risk Fund Marie Vodičková says that
Czech courts abide strictly by the
law in returning a child to the country where it permanently resided without
bothering to investigate what kind of environment it will live in, whether it
may face abuse and often without any regard to its own wishes.
C “The problem is a poor interpretation of the Hague Convention on
Children’s Rights. Both our courts and the Office for the International Legal
Protection of Children which issues
recommendations in this respect share the view that children should be returned
to their country of residence and courts there should decide about them. They
do so without any regard to what conditions the child is being returned to,”
Vodičková thinks.
D The Supreme Court has recommended that in future all cases relating to
the wellbeing of children should
automatically be given precedence
and judges should seriously consider child’s wishes. This should ensure that
children like six-year-old Sara will not have to go on hunger strike to make their voice heard. But child psychologist
Daniel Hughes says that it is still the parents who have the biggest share of
responsibility for their children’s future.
E “Ideally, the parents would agree that this child can safely be exposed
to both cultures and the parents will trust each other and do what is best for
the child. The parents will not hate each other and try to prevent contact with
the other parent, that the child will be raised safely in both communities, if
the child lives in one it can visit the other. And it may take a great deal of
compromise on the part of both parents if their culture and religions are
greatly different. This could be very difficult so the parents have to be
committed to work very hard to make it happen.”
abide – dodržovat
hunger strike – hladovka
issue – uveřejnění
nightmare – noční můra
plight – nepříjemná situace
precedence – přednost
summon – přivolat
wellbeing – pohoda, blahobyt
1) Read the article and match each of the headings to a paragraph.
1 Czech courts do not
regard child’s wishes
2 Judges should consider
child’s wishes
3 Agreement between the
parents
4 Children should be
returned to their country
5 Sara was taken to
Portuguese and came back again
2) Read the article and answer the questions.
1 What is the article about?
2 Who is Sara Barao? What
happened to her?
3 Who is Marie Vodičková? What
are her opinions?
4 What was the situation of
children after the international divorce like? Has it changed? How?
3) Explain the following words.
1 to break up
2 children’s rights
3 abuse
4 heterosexual
5 experimentation
4) Answer the following questions.
What are reasons for a
divorce? What is a single parent family? Who are its members? What are problems
of a single parent?
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