Posted on Wednesday, May 04, 2005 10:41 AM
It has been a crazy few days. Last friday I heard that my son's friend Minh had to leave Norway with her mother before May 6. Minh and my son are great friends and Minh is often with us. Minh's mum has done nothing wrong. She is working long days in a factory to provide for her daugther. Her Norwegian husband is in Vietnam, undergoing special treatment for a chronic disease. The fact that they are not living together is reason not to renew their residency permits and to send Minh and her mother, who have Vietnamese citizenships, back to Vietnam.
Minh has been in Norway half her life. You can not just send a 7-year old girl away in the middle of the school year. Secondly, 80% of the school kids are immigrant children. Many of them come from families that have fled from war, conflict and exploitation. If one child is sent away from this school, many more children are affected. Children have the right to be safe and feel safe!
In the weekend the kids made a petition and all the children at Minh's school signed a petition on Monday. On Tuesday a good article was published in Aftenposten Aften (see online version). Minh's lawyer, Jacob Aars-Rynning, working at the Oslo free legal aid clinic, filed a petition against the decision. The immigration authorities have promised to look into it and to let Minh stay at least till the summer holiday.
Today, the kids at Gamlebyenskole were happy and proud that they could help Minh by working together. It is a lesson you can't learn too early in life!
You can also help! We still have to win the case and get Minh and her mum a new residency permit. Sign the online petition at: http://www.PetitionOnline.com/Minh7/petition.html. (When you sign the petition, Kommentar=Comments and Land=Country).