LEEDS, ENGLAND (ANS): A foster carer in the UK who was deregistered because she allowed a Muslim girl, 16, to convert to Christianity, is appealing the decision at Leeds High Court on April 27.
To protect the identity of the girl, none of the parties can be named.
According to The Christian Institute the girl, in her late teens, was interested in exploring Christianity before she was placed with the foster carer. But when the girl decided she wanted to be baptised, council officials said her carer had failed in her duty to preserve the girl’s religion and should have used her influence to prevent the baptism from going ahead.
They said the girl should stay away from church for six months, and later struck the carer off the fostering register. The carer, who has over 10 years experience looking after more than 80 children, is a practising Christian.
She made it clear to the girl when she arrived that she could continue to practice her Muslim faith if she wanted to.
The Christian Institute’s Mike Judge said: “All people should be free to change or modify their religious beliefs. That surely must be a core human right in any free society. I cannot imagine that an atheist foster carer would be struck off if a Christian child in her care stopped believing in God. This is the sort of double standard that Christians are facing in modern Britain.”
The carer, who attends a local evangelical church, said in February last year: “I did initially try to discourage her.
“I offered her alternatives. I offered to find places for her to practise her own religion. I offered to take her to friends or family. But she said to me from the word go, ‘I am interested and I want to come.’ She sort of burst in.”
The carer said that the girl’s social workers were fully aware that she was going to church and had not raised any objections.
The girl had told her auxiliary social worker of her plans to convert before she was baptised in January last year, and the social worker had appeared to give her consent. The carer’s solicitor Nigel Priestley says there is no evidence that the girl has suffered harm for changing her religion.
He argues that the authorities failed to listen to the girl’s views.
Priestley says the event that provoked the government was the decision by the girl to be baptised. He believes the government’s action is completely disproportionate. In a statement a government spokesman said: “From the details provided, we believe that this information relates to a child who is the subject of a final care order in favour of the council. In those circumstances, we are unable to pass any comment.”
“We would never be able to comment on sensitive issues surrounding a child in care,” he added. “To do so would be irresponsible and in this particular case may put the child at risk of harm.”
