A large number of Norwegian missionary children experienced that in the post-war period they were sacrificed on the altar of the vocation when they were separated from their parents and sent to boarding schools. The price has been sky high for many missionary families, and now missionary organizations have to pay compensation.
The country’s largest missionary company, the Norwegian Lutheran Missionary Association (NLM) has been affected over several years by an emotional and hard-hitting settlement over the fate of the missionary children. The conflict escalated further last week. The organisation’s powerful information manager and debater for several decades, Espen Ottosen, announced on Thursday that he is resigning from his position. In the past, General Secretary Øyvind Åsland has taken the same approach.
Ottosen disagrees that the executive board of NLM decided a month ago that two missionary children should receive NOK 750,000 each in compensation. He declares distrust of both the general secretary and the executive board for being too lenient towards the missionary children. Ottosen has a large following, and the reactions were not long in coming when he explained his resignation on Facebook.
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The background for the establishment of the boarding schools after the Second World War was the desire to preach the gospel to all peoples of the world. If this objective could be realized, it was considered necessary to place the missionaries’ children in boarding schools. It was too difficult for the parents to do home schooling under distant skies. In many cases there were great distances, and meetings between children and parents became rare.
Especially through the Harry Potter books, the arrangement of boarding schools in the British private school system has become well known. In Britain, many stories have been told about how differently the children reacted to being put away. Some had positive experiences, but for many students it was trauma that had to be processed.
It was hardly thought through how negatively it could turn out for the children who were put away.
This was also the case for the children at the mission’s Norwegian-run boarding schools. The mission leaders felt at the time that the establishment of boarding schools was done with the best of intentions, but they did not take into account the fact that it was an arrangement with a very high risk. It was hardly thought through how negatively it could turn out for the children who were put away.
Some of the stories are shocking, and in 2021 cartoonist Lene Ask made the documentary cartoon “O bli hos meg” which was just about growing up separated from parents. In June 2022, it was awarded “comic book of the year”.
In January 2024, the publisher Gyldendal followed up on another media platform. The audiobook publisher Fabel launched the podcast “Misjonærbarna” by author and director Øystein Stene. Through seven episodes, it is told about neglect in the service of the good.
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The various mission organizations have clearly not been prepared for the power of the strong narratives. The missionary children experienced that they were not taken seriously, and they made demands for compensation for the injustice they had experienced. Many missionary children experienced that the organizations were too unresponsive to the demand for restitution and financial compensation. This dispute is still ongoing, and has been brought up to date by the fact that missionary children connected to the Missions Association at the end of 2023 organized themselves in the association “Sent bort”.
The interest organization demands a “worthy reparation” and claims that many of the boarding school children were exposed to bullying and alienation. It is also claimed that 14 per cent of the children at the boarding school were exposed to sexual abuse.
In March 2024, the executive board of the Norwegian Lutheran Missionary Association decided that the two missionary children Liv Kristin Steen Brundtland and Gunnar Hansen should receive NOK 750,000 each in compensation.
The establishment of “Sendt bort” has also had political effects. After the organization had a meeting with Liberal politician Abid Raja in January 2024, he raised the question in the Storting’s question time.
– I want to hear what Church Minister Toppe thinks about the matters that have come to light, Raja told NTB.
– The stories I heard about stretched back to the 60s, and several thousand children were sent away to boarding schools. This seems to be another story about how religious control has once again affected the very weakest in our society, said Raja in the interview with NTB.
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In the Storting, Raja asked Minister Kjersti Toppe to explain how much money the Missions Association has received in state aid, and how the state followed up the funding of the boarding schools.
Whether there will be a further political settlement about the boarding schools remains to be seen. For thousands of voluntary donors, the strain is already great. They are forced to reflect on what the price tag of a calling might be. For many, it is incomprehensible that Christian communities, which in their time argued vehemently that the development of kindergartens in Norway was anti-family, have stood in the breach for arrangements that have deeply harmed thousands of children.
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