Brussels Journal Editor Threatened with Prosecution over Homeschooling

Yesterday my husband Paul Belien, the editor of this website, was summoned to the police station and interrogated. He was told that the Belgian authorities are of the opinion that, as a homeschooler, he has not adequately educated his children and, hence, is neglecting his duty as a parent, which is a criminal offence. The Ministry of Education has asked the judiciary to press charges and the judiciary told the police to investigate and take down his statement.

It appears that the Belgian authorities are again considering prosecution – the second time in barely two months. This time the claim is not that my husband posted allegedly “racist” texts on this website but that he is failing his children.

My husband, a lawyer by training, and I, a former university lecturer, have homeschooled four of our five children through high school. These four have meanwhile moved on to university. Our youngest child is also being homeschooled, but she has yet to obtain her high school certificate, for which she is currently taking exams. Like her four siblings she takes these exams before the Central Examination Board (CEB), an institution run by the Ministry of Education. The Belgian Constitution, written in 1831, allows parents to homeschool. The CEB exists to enable people who have not attended or who have failed school to obtain an official high school certificate.

Since we started homeschooling in the 1990s the homeschooling movement in Belgium has been growing. The number of homeschoolers is small, comprising only 202 children in primary school and 311 children in high school. Nevertheless the figure has quadrupled in the past five years, as parents are seceding from the official schools where drugs and violence are rampant and pupils are indoctrinated with political correctness and socialism.

The fact that a growing group of children seems to be escaping from the government’s influence clearly bothers the authorities. Three years ago a new school bill was introduced. The new bill refers to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and it obliges homeschooling parents to fill out a questionaire and sign an official “declaration of homeschooling” in which they agree to school their children “respecting the respect [sic] for the fundamental human rights and the cultural values of the child itself and of others.”

The declaration does not specify what “respecting the respect for the fundamental human rights and the cultural values of the child itself and of others” means. It states, however, that government inspectors decide about this and adds – and here is the crux of the matter – that if the parents receive two negative reports from the inspectors they will have to send their child to an official government recognized school.

My husband and I have refused to sign this statement since we are unwilling to put our signature under a document that forces us to send our children to government controlled schools if two state inspectors decide on the basis of arbitrary criteria that we are not “respecting the respect for the fundamental human rights and the cultural values of the child itself and of others.”

According to the Ministry of Education we have violated the law. The judiciary asked the police to take down my husband’s statement, but he refused to sign any document. He was informed that he might soon be taken to court.

Last month Michael Farris, the chairman of the American Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), warned that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child could make homeschooling illegal in the U.S., even though the US Senate has never ratified this Convention.

According to some activist judges the UN Convention is “customary international law. [...] The fact that virtually every other nation in the world has adopted it has made it part of customary international law, and it means that it should be considered part of American jurisprudence.”

Under the Convention severe limitations are placed on parents’ right to direct and train their children. Under Article 13 parents could be subject to prosecution for any attempt to prevent their children from interacting with material they deem unacceptable. Under Article 14 children are guaranteed “freedom of thought, conscience and religion” – in other words, children have a legal right to object to all religious training. And under Article 15 the child has a right to “freedom of association.”

Michael Farris pointed out that in 1995 “the United Kingdom was deemed out of compliance” with the Convention “because it allowed parents to remove their children from public school sex-education classes without consulting the child.” The HSLDA chairman said that, “by the same reasoning, parents would be denied the ability to homeschool their children unless the government first talked with their children and the government decided what was best. Moreover, parents would no longer have the right to bring up their children according to their own philosophical or religious beliefs, as the government, following the guidelines of a UN “committee of experts” would determine what religious teaching, if any, served the child’s best interest.”

Belgium, always quick to adopt and implement any measures aimed at undermining traditional morality and destroying the family, is already putting the decrees of the UN Convention into practice. Article 29 of the Convention stipulates that it is the goal of the State to direct the education of the people it governs toward the philosophy of the New World Order as “enshrined in the charter of the United Nations.” It also stipulates that each child must be prepared to be a responsible citizen by having “the spirit of understanding, peace, toleration, equity of sexes, and friendship [for] all peoples, ethnic, national and religious groups of indigenous origin.” Except probably those to which their parents belong.

Hence all homeschooling parents in Belgium are sent a form in which they are ordered to sign away their parental right to choose their children’s education, to adopt the “mimimum goals set out in the [2003] law on compulsory education,” namely “to respect the fundamental human rights and the cultural values of the child itself and of others” (with the state unilaterally deciding what these human rights and “cultural values” are), and to send their children to state approved schools if state inspectors deem that their schooling does not comply with the aforementioned “minimum goals.”

Parents who sign away their right to educate their own children are subsequently harassed and intimidated. Three families that we know have had to allow inspectors into their homes who interrogate and intimidate their children, then write a report that they are not in compliance with the minimum requirements (viz. the cultural values clause) set out in the signed document, announce that they will return for further inspection and that the children who fail to qualify will be forcibly sent to schools that are officially recognised by the government.

Nowhere, however, do these inspectors outline what they are inspecting and what criteria they apply. After a lifetime of inspecting schools with clearly defined curricula to determine whether the latter qualify for subsidies and recognition of their certificates, they are now set loose on families with no other purpose than to find fault and remove their children from their care. The families do not want subsidies or recognition of certificates, so there are no objective criteria for them to meet. Their children are questioned randomly on a variety of topics, irrespective of their own educational goals, age or curriculum. And they cannot protest the inspectors’ arbitrary verdict as they have signed away their right as citizens to appeal to a higher educational authority or to the courts.

Parents who do not sign away their right to educate their own children are regarded as not educating their children at all, and hence are guilty of a criminal offence.

When you can't advance by persausion and free exchange of ideas, that says something about the worth of your ideas. Leftists turn time and again to indoctrination by the state, because their ideas would otherwise be rejected.

He needs to move to a country which will allow him the freedom to educate his child. Spare me any diatribes about dropouts who pretend to be home schoolers. Most home schoolers work hard. If I saw the same lust for enlightenment in non home schoolers, public schools would not be such a bad joke.

Whilst I agree with what you are saying the only small worry I have in home schooling is interaction with other children and even adults

In an environment where their is an extended family with lots of sibling and or in a church going family then I cannot see this as a problem as there would be many opportunities to mix with other children at various social functions.

I can however see an only child not acquiring the necessary social skills required later in life.

I speak from semi experience here whilst I attended school it was 10 miles from where I lived and therefore had no friends near me after school or at the weekend though did have a few church friends but there was only one near my age. Consequently I do not have any friends from way back I had to start a afresh later in life which was quite difficult and I can see home schooling being similar but even worse as you do not have much opportunity to practice friendships.

child not acquiring the necessary social skills required later in life.

Doubt that is the government concern. Indoctrination to "state thought" is a more likely goal along with the ever present sodomite agenda.

United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child

INVALID TREATIES: TREATIES ARE FOR ESTABLISHING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, NOT FOR CREATING LAWS TO GOVERN CITIZENS WITHIN A SIGNATORY COUNTRY THAT SIMPLE MAJORITIES CAN'T CHANGE. ALL SUCH SO-CALLED TREATIES ARE NOT TREATIES AT ALL BY DEFINITION.

Your experience was unusual. Don't project that onto the modern version of homeschooling.

There are millions of kids in homeschool now, and consequently there are LOTS of opportunities for them to interact with other kids whether at play or in co-op type classes. There are homeschool teaching co-ops, homeschool sports leagues, and an increasing number of local schools allow homeschoolers to take certain classes and to participate in sports. There's so much stuff available that you can't find time to be involved in all of it.

The whole "socialization" issue with homeschoolers is not really applicable anymore.

Snugs,

Actually, IMO, the real problem is just the opposite. Many homeschoolers are too involved in activities. We homeschool as do most of our friends. We have to make it a point to say no to great opportunities that arise for homeschool kids.

Last month, I joined a couple hundred homeschool kids and families for a day at the State Capital. All the kids were engaged and very well behaved. The socialization argument actually falls flat when you take a hard look at it. The discitnary definition reads "To make fit for compainonship with others." Definition "People aside from oneself." This implies that socialism is the ability to interact with those who are not just like you, ie' people ouotside your peer group. That is what most homeschool kids excel at.

To add to your story, I grew up in a neighborhood full of kids and went to a local school. I do not keep in touch with anyone form those days either. It has nothing to do with the volume of people. It has to do with my lack of desire to hang out with them.

>>>He needs to move to a country which will allow him the freedom to educate his child.

Won't work after dark. Consider this foreshadowing.

Ever since we signed the EU/WTO agreement, we are bound to come to the same food trade agreements.

I know, 'What on earth does that have to do with school????'

It was snuck in under the Food Safety initiative of Healthy People 2010.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1561077/posts
Animal Tagging and SCHOOL LUNCHES???

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1563271/posts
Healthy People 2010

Since the kids' food programs fall under USDA grants, we have to abide by the conditions of these grants to bring up all the trade rules by 2010.

EU/WTO Trade agreements are posted here:

http://nationalpropertyowners.org/nais.html

Ping. Please read this when you have time. This is where the U.S. left is aiming. Hillary and others have been supporting this U.N. Rights of the Child movement for a long time (it started back in the 70s, I believe), and all we need for this thought policing of religious or traditional parents to happen here is for another Democrat administration or Congress to take power.

From one of those links you sent:

http://www.osec.doc.gov/ogc/occic/bibwork.htm
THE NORTH AMERICAN FREE TRADE AGREEMENT
Had This listed as a Source:
Sovereignty Revisited: Sovereignty and Food Safety in a NAFTA

This was an excellent reason for rebuttal based on that Food Safety section:

http://leda.law.harvard.edu/leda/data/453/Moore.pdf
Food Sovereignty Revisited: Should the United States Reevaluate its Commitment to Free Trade in Food Products in the 21st Century?

Article 29 of the Convention stipulates that it is the goal of the State to direct the education of the people it governs toward the philosophy of the New World Order as “enshrined in the charter of the United Nations.” It also stipulates that each child must be prepared to be a responsible citizen by having “the spirit of understanding, peace, toleration, equity of sexes, and friendship [for] all peoples, ethnic, national and religious groups of indigenous origin.”

Muslim nations need not comply?

Yes, I know, this is a homeschool thread and not an agri thread.

BUT, it is very much related.

The Food Safety section of Healthy People 2010 is one of the worm holes into the schools as per the USDA grants for the school food programs.

When I was first reading the 'get the sugar and fats out of schools' news articles...the leverage came from the terms and conditions of the USDA grants.

NAIS is also under the Food Safety section of Healthy People 2010.

Oh what a taggled web.

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