Foster chiefs defend placing Christian girl with Muslims
SOCIAL services bosses have defended a decision to place a five-year-old Christian girl with Muslim foster parents.
The child was sent to live with two Muslim families in six months, it was claimed.
One family reportedly suggested she should remove her necklace bearing a cross and learn Arabic.
One carer is said to have worn a burka when with her in public.
Council reports said the girl was “very distressed” and had begged not to return to one family as “they don’t speak English”.
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Managers at Tower Hamlets council, east London, said yesterday “cultural background is a significant consideration” in foster placements but that other factors have to be taken into account.
The Children Act 1989 requires a local authority to consider “religious persuasion, racial origin and cultural and linguistic background” for children who are in care as a result of a court order.
Debbie Jones, the council’s corporate director of children’s services, said: “Once the decision was taken to place the child into temporary care, we had to find the best placement available at the time. While cultural background is always a significant consideration, so too are other factors including remaining in the local area to promote contact with the child’s family and for the child to continue at the same school in order to give them as much stability as possible.”
She said the priority was to place a child in a “safe and loving environment”.
She added: “Our foster carers are qualified people from different backgrounds, with vast experience of looking after children. They represent the diverse makeup of our borough which is a place where people of all backgrounds get on with one another.”
A council spokesman said staff had “always been working towards the child being looked after by a family member”.
They claimed there had been “inaccuracies” in reports and said the girl had been temporarily placed with an “English-speaking family of mixed race”.
Judge Khatun Sapnara, herself a practising Muslim, re-examined the case at the family court hearing on Tuesday.
She decided that the girl, who has not been identified, should live with her grandmother.
Yesterday, Tory MP Robert Halfon said it would be equally concerning if a Muslim child who did not speak English was placed with Christians and where the child’s language was not spoken.