Sweden to investigate alleged systematic abuse
in public children's homes
The Associated Press
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STOCKHOLM, Sweden
The Swedish
government said Thursday it will investigate claims that many of the thousands
of children placed in state foster care in the decades following World War II
were systematically abused and beaten.
The allegations of rampant mistreatment at
public children's homes between 1950 and 1980 have fueled widespread anger
among Swedes in the last week, following a documentary on public television
describing systematic physical and mental abuse at such a facility.
The
program caused an outpouring of similar stories from people who lived at other
children's homes, and the Ministry of Health and Social Services said Thursday
it will investigate the extent of such abuse.
"I
want to know how systematic and how widespread this was," said Morgan
Johansson, minister of Public Health and Social Services.
The
investigation is to be completed by March 31 next year, but the government said
it has not decided whether it will offer financial compensation to children who
were abused.
The
reports of mistreatment have shed more light on a dark chapter in Sweden's
history, when the government forced thousands of children into foster care
because authorities deemed their parents unfit to raise a child.
In
the mid-1900s, lobotomies were also commonplace in Sweden's public psychiatric
care, and more than 63,000 people, a vast majority of them women, were
sterilized by authorities between 1934 and 1976.
Following
Sunday's documentary by public broadcaster SVT, a flood of calls have been
placed to the help organization Step Children of the State, which has tried to
bring attention the issue for almost two years.
"People
have called all week, who have very bad experiences from as far back as the
1940s and 30s," said Birger Hjelm, chairman of the organization.
He said the callers have
told stories of violence and sexual and mental abuse that still haunts them.
Many have had difficulties talking about their experiences before, Hjelm said,
as they felt that society was trying to put a lid on the past.
"Seventy-year-old
ladies have called and cried like children on the phone, and it is the first
time they have opened up about this," Hjelm said. "What they need is
understanding, an apology and redress. It
would be incredibly healing."
Sweden to
investigate alleged systematic abuse in public children's homes
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Eugenics and the Welfare State
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Child
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Hyacinth
Österlin’s letter to the NCHR. An emigrated immigrant's views on the Götene
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E-mail letter to the NCHR - November 21, 2002.
The Folly of
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Rebecca's Christmas.
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