Stockholm: Swedish authorities are fighting back against claims that social services are “kidnapping” Muslim children, condemning a “disinformation campaign” of viral videos spreading mistrust among immigrant families.
In late 2021, videos of actual intervention by child welfare services began to appear on Arabic-language social media sites, showing crying babies separated from distraught parents.
With limited context about the situations depicted, the videos accuse Sweden of being a fascist state where social services keep Muslim children with pedophiles in Christian homes or where they are forced to drink alcohol and eat pork. Is.
After the claims were reported by Middle Eastern media outlets, Swedish government officials and social services have come out to refute the claims.
“We absolutely don’t do that,” Migration and Integration Minister Anders Yagmann told AFP, emphasizing the main goal was to support families.
Yegman said the campaign was being spearheaded by “frustrated parents who have failed in their upbringing” and venting their anger at the authorities.
“There are malicious forces that seek to exploit the frustration of these parents to spread mistrust and division,” he said.
Sweden’s newly created Psychological Defense Agency has described many of the videos as outdated, presenting a false reference with “the purpose of polarizing”.
Terrorism expert Magnus Ranstorp of the Swedish Defense University told AFP that the campaign was based primarily on a Facebook group called “Barnes Ratigheter Mina Ratigheter” Share your experiences of being removed. look after them.
The stories were picked up by radical imams in Sweden and abroad, as did the Nyans (Nuans), a new fringe political party, which created a rallying cry for the forcible removal of children ahead of the general election in September.
Muslim online influencers with millions of followers also joined the fray, as well as the Arabic site “Shuun Islamiyah” (“Islamic Affairs”), which has published nearly 20 videos.
There have also been several protests in Sweden.
Ranstorp said that while there may be some legitimate criticism against social services, the harsh rhetoric in the media post was “provocative”.
Julia Agha, head of Stockholm-based Arabic-language news outlet Alkompis, has followed the campaign closely.
“Initially, it was probably meant as a campaign, where children whose children have been detained, their families have been treated unjustly and want to criticize social services,” he told AFP.
“What has happened is that this campaign has ended up in the hands of forces abroad who have put a religious filter on it and are spreading propaganda, which now looks like a hate campaign against Sweden and Swedish society.”
Sweden’s National Board of Health and Welfare, which oversees social services, insists that removing children from their homes is always a last resort.
“This is done only when voluntary measures are not possible and there is a significant risk of harm to the child’s health or development,” the agency told AFP in an email.
Official figures show that in 2020, a total of 9,034 children were in state-ordered care without the consent of their parents.
Researchers and social workers have noted that while more immigrant children are removed from their homes than ethnic Swedes, immigrant families are also less likely to accept earlier stages of assistance from social workers.
Sweden is often hailed as a pioneer in children’s rights and was the first country to ban corporal punishment of children in 1966.
But critics say that dismissing the issue as propaganda ignores the real issues with social services.
Maria Elmoutouakil, 35, who immigrated to Sweden 12 years ago from Morocco, organized a protest outside the social services office in her hometown of Gallivar last year after two of her three children were taken out of their care.
She told AFP her 10-year-old son and six-year-old daughter were taken away by social services following alleged violence at home.
She said the decision was not based on evidence, only on interviews with children of social workers that they were never allowed to see.
Social services generally do not comment on individual matters.
Elmoutouakkil said she understood that her children were not “kidnapped,” but she understood why some people use the term.
“It can start to feel like a kidnapping for me as a mother,” she said. “When we don’t get the answer as parents, I can understand that they say it.”
Sweden has struggled for years to integrate immigrants.
The wealthy country of 10.4 million granted asylum and family reunification to more than 400,000 people from 2010 to 2019 – more per capita than any other European country.
“Sweden still has many integration challenges, at least when it comes to isolation,” Agha told AFP.
She said that many immigrants struggle to learn Swedish, live in areas where they interact only with other immigrants, and do not feel part of Swedish society.