Fifteen-year-old Melissa Busekros was being home-schooled by her family in Germany after she achieved disappointing grades in math and latin. The family thought that they could help her do better and save her having to repeat the year seeing as her grades in her other subjects were fine. A tough situation and the family made what I'm sure wasn't an easy decision.
But, home-schooling is illegal in Germany. And when they say illegal, they mean it. It was made illegal in 1938. Yes, he was running the place then and they still enforce this law with zeal.
On the afternoon of the 1st of February, the judge of the Family Court, representatives of the Youth Welfare Office, along with fifteen police officers, marched up to the Busekros home, to haul Melissa off to the Child Psychiatry Unit of the Nuremberg clinic. The judicial decision authorising this also removed Melissa from her parents’ custody, according to her father, Hubert Busekros.This treatment was justified by the psychiatrist’s finding, two days previously, that she was supposedly developmentally delayed by one year and that she suffered from school phobia.There's a new word to throw around in arguments - a schoolaphobe. Or should that be a Schulephobe?
I first read about this in the Washington Times the other day. {Why no Irish or UK papers? I'm skeptical this could be true, but ...} That this could be happening in the EU with so little fanfare in this EU state makes me wonder what I can expect when we see the wording of the proposed Children's Rights amendment. Will Schulephobes be dealt with in the wording? We'll have to wait and see.
