"High number of child abductions even before the LVU campaign"

There is currently no national survey of how many children are taken out of Sweden.

All authorities register it in different ways.

SVT's digging reporters have focused on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' register of child abductions according to the Hague Convention and what are known as family-related coercion cases in order to find out how many are involved. 

At least 916 children have been taken out of Sweden over five years, the survey shows.

SVT's reporter Sarah Ibrahim has met two mothers who were affected.

- In both cases, it is about abductions where the fathers want the children to grow up in a more traditional religious environment, and that is the case in 60 percent of the cases, she says in SVT's Morgonstudion.

Child abductions also take place outside the context of honor

Since December 2021, there has been a disinformation campaign directed at Swedish social services, where it is alleged that Muslim children are kidnapped.

The campaign has spread on social media, but according to the experts that SVT spoke to, it has not had a particularly large impact on children being taken from Sweden to other countries.

- The professionals (within social services) raised the risk that an increase could be the consequence, but it is not something we as an authority have been able to analyze or draw conclusions about, says Sara Bäckström, at the Equality Agency.

SVT's mapping also shows that there has been a high number of child abductions even before the LVU campaign.

In the last five years, approximately 200 children have been abducted per year, most to Somalia, Iraq and Syria.

- What we can see is that people are abducted to avoid the authorities' involvement in the family.

This particularly applies to cases where there has been a problem of honour, explains Sara Bäckström.

Families report increased anxiety

In some of the families that SVT has followed, however, both parents and children have told of an increased concern about contacting social services. 

- I have always been suspicious of social services because I myself grew up in HVB homes, but if I had contacted them earlier, they might have been able to stop the abduction of my children, says Sandra, who in 2021 had two out of four children abducted.

SVT Nyheter's review continues - do you know more or have you been affected yourself?

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