Fundamental Rights Section 2.9.3 Respect for the religious background of children in the case of adoption or foster care (VA W/780-SOZ/05) (Art. 20 CRC) Ms. N.N. converted to Islam a few years ago; therefore, also her three-year old son became a Muslim. Due to the difficult situation and illness of the mother, he was placed in foster care with a Catholic family when he was six years old. Before that, he had been taken care of in crisis intervention centres on several occasions. The Public Health Office asked Ms. N.N. whether she would agree to her son's conversion to Catholicism. Her son is fully integrated in the village community and wants to actively participate in the Roman-Catholic ceremonies. He said clearly that he wanted to be baptised. Ms. N.N. explained to the Public Health Office that she could not give her consent, in particular because such consent would lead to her expulsion from the Islamic Religious Community. Since it was the minor's express wish to be baptised pursuant to RomanCatholic rite and to not wait until he has completed his fourteenth year of age, when no consent on the part of the parents is required, the youth welfare agency decided to turn to the competent court on this sensitive issue and filed a respective petition. Despite continued concerns of the child's mother, the Ombudsman Board, after considering all aspects, did not recognise the complaint as justified, but turned to the City Administration Head Office with the question to what extent the religious background of children is taken into account when selecting foster or adoptive parents. The City Administration Head Office informed the Ombudsman Board in its statement of February 28, 2006 that efforts are made to take the religious, ethnic, cultural and linguistic background of children duly into account. Since, in most cases only Austrian families take on tasks as adoptive or foster parents who mostly belong to the Catholic or Protestant denomination or have no denomination, there is a lack of families with the same religious, ethnic, cultural and linguistic background. However, the authorities have been instructed to ensure that the selected adoptive and foster parents are unbiased to the different cultures and denominations and that they show the children placed in their care the family background of their original families without prejudice. Art. 20 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child provides the obligation to take the desired continuity in the child's education as well as the ethnic, religious, cultural and linguistic background of the child duly into account when selecting a foster or adoptive family. Knowledge of one's own background including the protection of one's religious background and identity is an elementary need of every human being. This must be taken into account also when selecting a foster or adoptive family. It is clear that the various interests in issue have to be balanced and fulfilled as far as possible: on the one hand, the interests of the natural parents and the child in protection of their religious background, on the other hand the child's interest in being integrated into the community of his foster or adoptive family. 73