Sweden to probe years of abuse on children's homes
SWEDEN TO PROBE
YEARS OF ABUSE IN CHILDREN'S HOMES
On
Sunday 27 November 2005 Swedish state television (SvT2) showed the documentary
"Stolen Childhood" in which it was reported that about 100 000 Swedes have at some point in
their lives lived in children's homes. Many of those people's lives today are
still affected by their childhood experiences.
The TV-documentary has now resulted in the Swedish government promising an
official inquiry into the serious allegations made against the child-care
institutions.
"The State must make an unconditional apology to those former children's
home children" said Social Services Minister Morgan Johansson.
The NCHR is pleased that the Swedish government is to launch an investigation
into the conditions for the former children's home children, but as usual, Sweden
is a late starter.
Other countries have already started investigating and coming to terms with the
despicable conditions to which children taken into state care have been
subjected. Australia
seems to have been the first country to investigate the conditions under which
children - Aboriginee children - who had been forcibly removed from their
parents, lived. The investigations started in December 1995 and the report Bringing them home:
The 'Stolen Children' report presented in 1996 - 1997 made echoes around
the world. The United Nations called the system Genocide. The Australian
government has failed to apologise to the victims of the past policies.
In England and Wales, the Waterhouse
Commission (1996 - 1998) set up by former Tory leader, William Hague, presented
its report, The Waterhouse Report, in 2000.
In 2001, former children's home children in Bergen, Norway
demanded redress and compensation for the abuses that they had suffered while
they were in state care. This gave rise to a land-wide investigation led by the
Befring-Committee that found that there was
systemic abuse in the foster homes and institutions. The victims have sued the
Norwegian state for their demands and so far the government has made
settlements with a few but the case is still pending.
In Ireland
the government has set aside billions in order to give compensation to former
children's home children. There have been several investigations made about
what took place when the Catholic Church systematically exposed children to
abuse. There is an enormous amount of reports and investigations and everyone
who has been in certain institutions are eligible for damages. The sums vary
between GB £ 3 600 and £ 214 000. On an average payments of GB £42 800 each
have been made after application to the "Redress board"
which ceases to exist after December
31, 2005. Survivors and their spouses and children are also granted
economic support for education and leisure activities through the state agency
NOVA.
*******
The
European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has - on numerous occasions -
found Sweden guilty of violating children's and their families' Human rights to
private and family life. The first case was Olsson v.
Sweden, 1982, which was a
decisive victory for attorney-at-law and former medical practitioner, Mrs. Siv Westerberg, who has
subsequently won several child care cases against Sweden in the European Court
of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Despite all those verdicts against Sweden
we are experiencing a galloping number of cases where children are being
unnecessarily taken from their parents and placed in public care.
The NCHR (Nordic Committee for Human Rights, For the Protection of Family
Rights in the Nordic countries) was co-founded in 1996 by Mrs Siv Westerberg,
in a desperate attempt to prevent a proliferation of cases like those presented
in Stolen Childhood and the modern child care cases. See for eg The
Edner Case and The Helena Lufuma
Case.
In August 1998 Attorney-at-law
Lennart Hane, a fierce opponent of the Swedish system, wrote a letter to
the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Social Affairs demanding
compensation to the victims of the social services. In November 1998, Siv
Westerberg and I, Ruby Harrold-Claesson, had a meeting with the legal
secretaries at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, in order to
bring focus on the fact that not only the visiting rights issues but also the
separation of children from their parents should be treated as violations of
Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
At this point the NCHR would like to remind our readers about the eugenics
debate that raged in the 1990s concerning the ca 60,000 women who were forcibly
sterilised between 1936 - 1976, after being deemed unfit for motherhood because
they were handicapped, according to the then modern medical and social
expertise. After the sterilisation law was abrogated in the middle of the
1970's Parliament passed new laws for the social services and the forcible
taking of children into public care. They couldn't stop the adults from having
children, they took the children and placed them in "suitable" foster
homes. The new-swedish term "family home" was brought into existence.
Once again, the NCHR is pleased that the Swedish government is to launch an
investigation into the conditions for the former children's home children, but
it is of utmost urgency that the government should investigate the conditions
of the tens of thousands of children and young people who are living in foster
homes today.
14 year old Daniel Sigström died in his foster
home in Härnosand on April 24, 1992.
Since then several other children have died in their foster homes. The Sigström
case was investigated by the Ombudsman of Justice but despite the fact that
there were over 100 serious miscarriages of justice, the Ombudsman did not
prosecute any of the civil servants involved. Also, several parents, for eg The Götene Case have
had to take their children and flee from Sweden
to protect their families from being destroyed by the social workers and the
administrative courts.
Ruby Harrold-Claesson,
attorney-at-law
President
of the NCHR
December 11, 2005
Sweden to probe
years of child abuse in children’s homes
By Steven Brown
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Thousands
of Swedes who say they were subjected to physical abuse and cruel treatment in
state children’s homes and foster care for decades from the 1950s won the
promise of an official inquiry on Thursday.
A cabinet minister said the probe would investigate the cases, which peaked in
the 1940s and ‘50s when Sweden’s
zeal for social engineering included making children of single women or poor
people wards of the state.
It could result in an apology and compensation similar to that given in the
1990s to around 60,000 women who were forcibly sterilized between 1936-76 after
being deemed unfit for motherhood because they were handicapped.
Reuters 8
December, 2005
Sweden
to investigate alleged systematic abuse in public children's homes
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 Associated Press
Bringing them home: The 'Stolen Children'
report
Demand for compensation for care-order victims
By Lennart Hane
’Missing’- A transcript of an Australian Broadcasting Corporation
documentary
By Kirstin Garrett
Eugenics and the
Welfare State
Norway,
Sweden, Denmark, and Finland
Gunnar Broberg, Nils
Roll-Hansen
Child
Abuse: The Waterhouse Report
By Simon Regan
Hyacinth
Österlin’s letter to the NCHR. An emigrated immigrant's views on the Götene Case
E-mail letter to the NCHR - November 21, 2002.
The Folly of
Sweden's State Controlled Families
Siv Westerberg's lecture to The Family Education Trust, London, 19/6 1999.
Spectre
of Children's Gulag haunts Sweden
By Chris Mosey
Swedish
couple enduring USA poverty to keep son
By John Brinkley
Taking
children into care in Sweden
By Linda Ärlig
Rebecca's Christmas.
A tale of evil from real life
By Ann-Louise Hansson
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