After months of protests organized by Muslim families in Sweden because their children were "kidnapped" by the authorities, lawyer Seo Westerberg, a member of the Scandinavian Human Rights Committee, reveals the secrets of the country's social services system, and alerts to the financial side of the issue.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Westerberg, the international lawyer who won 8 cases in the European Court of Human Rights against Swedish social services, believes that the authorities "kidnap Muslim children, and they do not accept the idea that Muslims have other ways to live."

Sweden established a law in 1990 called the Youth Welfare (Special Provisions) Act, which gives social service workers the power to forcibly remove children from their parents.

According to this law, social agencies have the right to send their employees, with the help of the police, to withdraw children from their homes or directly from school without their parents' knowledge, without the need to obtain permission from the Swedish Administrative Court.

The children are transferred directly to a house designated for secret investigation, the so-called "care home" or "nursing home".

The impunity that Swedish social services enjoy has led to countless violations of the Youth Welfare Act, which gives legal grounds for the forced removal of children.

Westerberg, who is also a former doctor, believes that "if you are an immigrant family in Sweden, there is a good chance that the social authorities will take your child away from you."

In response to a question about protests organized by Muslim families, Westerberg said that "social workers find kidnapping Muslim children more fun than sitting all day caring for alcoholics, giving them money and clothes."

Swedish authorities denied the allegations of kidnapping, describing the discussions on Twitter as a "disinformation campaign", adding that social services "always put the safety and well-being of the child first."

The kidnapping of Muslim children in Sweden by the social services sparked a lot of anger around the world (websites)

mind manipulation

Halima Marie came to Sweden from the African nation of Gambia with her husband, Almamo Jargo and children, but only a few months later, her 6-year-old daughter was pulled over by social services officials.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Halima said that the school played with her daughter's mind by telling her that "they will find a better home for her because we will most likely beat her."

While Almamo, the girl’s father, said that his daughter was taken to 5 different homes when she was 6 to 7 years old, due to being sexually abused by foster families.

Almamo added that he suspects that his daughter, who is currently 15, "is still a victim of sexual abuse in her current home, and that social services are not doing anything about it."

Halima and Al-Mamo reported that they last saw their daughter 3 years ago, when she was 12 years old, stressing that "the social services stopped any contact between us, and we have no idea where she is."

Almamo believes his family is a victim of racism, and that the only reason he kept his daughter away from them is because "we are Muslims".

Lena Hellblom Sjögren, a famous Swedish forensic psychiatrist, believes that judges adjudicating welfare cases lack the tools for the work they do, and that in every case they violate their obligation to the Swedish Basic Law that they must be “impartial and seek the facts.” ".

The Swedish system is "unfair" to the child, says Sjögren, author of The Child's Right to Family Life, because children's rights, human rights, legal rights and the child's needs are "violated".

The Syrian Diab Talal (38 years old) and his wife Amal Sheikho were deprived of their five children by the Social Services Council (activists)

money first

Observers believe that the Swedish Youth Welfare Act generates billions of dollars annually, representing 2% of the Swedish state budget.

Withdrawing children from their mothers, Westerberg says, is "a very big business in Sweden".

She pointed out that nurseries get a lot of money from social services and that "when you adopt a child in your home, you will get 25,000 Swedish krona per month (about 2522 US dollars), and you do not have to pay any taxes for this amount."

"A lot of sick people who don't have any feelings for children adopt two or three children, to amass an income that very few people in Sweden have," Westerberg added.

"You can have a luxurious life if you have two or three children," she added.

Ink on paper

Swedish law states that children must be placed first with someone from the same family, but according to Sogren, "this law and many other laws are not followed in Sweden".

"The law looks very good on paper, but in practice it is not (..) they don't follow the law," she added.

Pratima Singh and her husband, David Maclean Treat, are Indian Americans whose son Richard was pulled by social services when he was nine years old.

"Social services came with the police, picked him up, and put him outside of Stockholm," MacLean Tritt said.

"For 10 years, we have been pleading before the courts," he added.

Richard's father added that his son "has become in bad company and takes drugs," noting that social services officials allowed him to leave the nursing home because he turned 18, but they put him in a program for those with problems with drugs or alcohol.

"We will never forgive or forget what they've done in our lives," said McClain Treat. "They're just doing it to make money."

Sweden's social services are such a powerful institution that even in the rare cases where a Swedish court sided with the family and ruled against a social services decision to take the child away, social services officials can override the ruling and refuse to return the child to the parents.