A 15-year-old girl goes on holiday to her parents' homeland Iraq.

She does not want to travel because she is afraid she will never come home again.

On social media, she writes to her teachers and asks for help when her mother says that she will never see Sweden again.

The girl is one of the 16 girls who contacted the organization GAPF (Never forget Pela and Fadime) during the first half of 2021. Sabina Landstedt, support coordinator at GAPF, states that now that the borders are starting to reopen after the pandemic, the cases that belong of them to them because they have been abducted become more.

During the first half of 2019, Gapf was involved in 12 cases involving abducted children and young people, mainly girls.

The same figure for the first half of 2020 was 7 cases.

- These girls who heard about it are between 15 and 22 years old.

They have been removed because they do not follow the family's norms for how to behave and in their home countries they are exposed to child or forced marriage, says Sabina Landstedt.

Guarded by relatives

The girls who get in touch ask for help to come home again.

In all cases, the parents have taken away their passports and they are often guarded around the clock by relatives.

The 15-year-old girl in Iraq had told the social services that she was afraid she would be abducted and the social services then contacted her parents.

According to statistics from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for 2020, the 72 cases concerning family-related coercion.

In 50 of the 72 cases, the social services had had contact with the families before they left the country.

Since 1 July 2020, the social services can apply for a travel ban.

Decisions on travel bans are made by the administrative court upon application by the social welfare board.

In urgent cases, the social welfare board may decide on a temporary travel ban.

- In these cases, it is of crucial importance to review other initiatives for children such as the opportunity to enter with an LVU in parallel with a travel ban. We can see that in some cases, where it has been decided on a travel ban, not enough other protective measures have been taken, it is then common for children to take back what they have previously told, says Negin Amirekhtiar, says Negin Amirekhtiar, expert lawyer at National the competence team against honor-related violence and oppression.