Is Sweden Targeting Muslim Children?

This is Shahid Bolson. Welcome to the Middle Nation. Someone asked me in the comment section to address this trending campaign, across Muslim social media that is depicting Sweden, of all places, as a vicious, tyrannical, anti Muslim country that is kidnapping Muslim children, refugees, from their families for no reason other than that they're practicing Muslims. They are forcibly taking children from their families and putting them in foster homes, making girls take off the hijab, making Muslim kids eat pork, and so on and so on and so on. Now from what I've seen, this campaign has suggested that some 32,000 Muslim children have been kidnapped and taken away from their families simply because they are trying to raise them to be good Muslims.

These claims are always accompanied by videos of children crying, mothers crying, children being escorted from their homes with police, by force, the mothers in tears, and, you know, very alarming sort of anecdotal reports by people who are usually disguising their identities, talking about how evil the government of of Sweden is and how impossible it is to be a religious Muslim in Sweden. Now whenever you come across one of these very outrageous reports, on the Internet, you should always sort of check-in your own mind whether or not this version of reality that the report is alleging correlates in any way at all with the world as you know it and with the way the world works as you know it because these stories don't reflect the real world. First of all, the total number of children who are in foster care, foster homes in Sweden is right around or less than 32,000. So right off the bat, you know that the suggestion that 32,000 Muslim children have been taken away from their families is wrong or misleading. Unless, of course, you believe that every single child in Sweden who's in a foster home or in foster care is Muslim, which is, you know, patently ludicrous.

Now you should also bear in mind that this practice is not terribly different than any other country in the world where child protective services have the power to impose foster care on children and remove them from a home where they feel that they are being mistreated. For instance, there's about 70,000 kids who are in foster homes right now who've been taken away from their families and put in in foster homes in The UK. There's about 400,000 in The United States. And there's been criticisms about the policy of child removal wherever it occurs, and there's been multiple studies worldwide about the negative impact that removing a child from their family and placing them in foster care, the negative impact that that has on the child. There's multiple studies about that.

A lot of research has been done. Of course, there's also success stories, but none of this is new. Now I'm sure that some percentage of that four hundred thousand in The United States, some percentage of that seventy thousand in The UK, some percentage of those children who've been taken from their homes in those countries are probably Muslim kids. Does that mean that those kids are being targeted because they're Muslim? I mean, you decide.

I mean, you can also read about non Muslim children in Sweden being taken from their families and placed in foster families where those foster families are Muslim immigrants. So you have non Muslim kids being taken from non Muslim families and placed with Muslim families. So, I mean, you tell me. Now if you've ever worked in social work or with at risk youth as I have, then you'll know that removing a child from their home and placing them in foster care or in a foster institution is never something that can happen suddenly. It's always preceded by multiple procedures, visits, interviews, investigations, and so on.

Now in Sweden, the results of these investigations are placed in a report that is given to a municipal court judge who will then make the determination as to whether or not intervention is appropriate and whether or not placing the child in foster care is appropriate. And in the great majority of cases in Sweden, removal from the home is generally for a very brief period of time often only twenty four hours. And in the great majority of cases, intervention is deemed unnecessary and no action is taken. So at the very least what we can say about these stories that we're seeing about Muslim children being abducted from their homes, the least we can say is that a great deal of necessary information is missing from these stories. Now if it's enough for you to believe that Muslim children are being taken away from their families simply because they pray, that's up to you.

It's not enough for me. It's not convincing to me, and I don't find believable. Allegedly, this is happening to the children of refugees and asylum seekers. These are people, these are families who have already received from the government years of support, financial support, vocational support, educational support. You can contrast that if you like with the treatment that Muslim refugees receive from Muslim countries.

Think the Rohingya and Bangladesh in Cox Bazar Refugee Camp, or think Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. The treatment that Sweden affords to refugees and asylum seekers does not scream to me Islamophobia. Now it is true that in Sweden, refugees are generally placed in rural and economically depressed areas where the local population is already in decline, and you tend to find a lot of support for right wing views, anti immigrant, anti Muslim sentiments. It's also true that social service intervention is executed in these parts of the country by local authorities in the municipalities. So it is conceivable that the anti immigrant, anti Muslim right wing views that are more prevalent in that part of the country may also sway the execution of policy by local authorities.

But it's also true that because these are areas where economic opportunities are few, you're likely going to find more poverty related family problems that you would normally find in impoverished areas. Things like neglect, things like abuse, things like malnutrition, all of which could potentially contribute to a decision by authorities to remove a child from a home. But again, this would apply to anyone in those areas, any children in those areas, Muslim or non Muslim. So again, it means that a great deal of information from these stories is missing. What is the stated reason why these things are happening?

Because no children are gonna be taken away from their families without explanation, and no children are gonna be taken away from their families without an extensive set of procedures taking place beforehand. Look, Sweden is a welfare state. It means it's a massive bureaucracy. There are multiple layers of authority that have to sign off before any intervention can take place. The claim that authorities are just grabbing Muslim kids willy nilly, it's just not plausible.

Now is it possible that these procedures did take place, that investigations did take place, that visits and checks did take place, and the families didn't understand what was happening? Sure. So it seems to them that their children are being taken away from them just suddenly. Now there's a lot wrong with Sweden's child protective services, and that's been well documented, well researched, criticized, talked about, and covered for years. The increasing privatization of social service investigators, the bias of investigators, the rush to judgment by investigators, and the generally persuasive posture that investigators take with families during interviews.

All of these things have been highlighted in the past, but again, they apply across the board to all children in Sweden, to all families in Sweden, not just Muslims. And these same types of criticisms and these same types of problems crop up in every country that allows child protective services to remove children from their family homes. Now, undoubtedly, social workers have cultural biases and are likely to overreact to cultural or religious beliefs and practices that they deem to not be aligned with normative beliefs and practices of their society. And again, that's everywhere, not just Sweden, not just the Scandinavian countries. That's in every country that allows child protective services to remove children from their homes.

The social workers make an assessment and their assessments will be infected to one degree or another with bias, cultural societal biases. And that's just as likely to disfavor any immigrant group, any immigrant family whether Muslim or not. Now it is also true that Sweden has a very expansive definition of honor related quote unquote violence against women, which includes what they see as any coercive attempt to control a woman's sexuality, I e to teach your daughter that she can only have sex with her husband. But the only way that that would ever even come to the attention of a case worker or a social worker is if the girl herself brings it up and if the girl herself reports that she feels that she is under coercion by her family. And that barely ever happens, especially among immigrant families and especially among Muslim families.

So unless you can cite a case where a daughter has been removed from her home, separated from her family, and placed in foster care because her parents taught her that zina is haram, Unless you have a specific case where that actually happened, it's all hypothetical. Now, of course, it is also entirely possible that parents are spanking or smacking their kids, which is pretty normal across the Muslim world and if we're honest, everywhere. But it is illegal in Sweden. It is illegal in most northern and western European countries, illegal in The United States, and illegal in Canada. So if that's going on, pretty obviously, that's going to lead to intervention by the state.

But if that's the reason that child is removed from a home, it's gonna be followed up with a criminal case or at least court ordered counseling for the parents. So, yeah, on the face of it, these stories are not really that believable, at least in terms of the idea that Muslim families are being targeted and their children are being kidnapped because the parents are trying to raise them as practicing Muslims. That's hyperbole. Now if there's more specific information where that has actually happened, then we can talk about those cases. So what is the source then and the purpose of this apparent campaign to suggest that Sweden is virulently anti Muslim and kidnapping Muslim children from their homes.

Well, who knows? But one thing's for sure, it certainly serves the interests of the hardline right wingers in Sweden who are anti Muslim and anti immigrant and who would very much like to see fewer Muslims interested in moving to Sweden and more Muslims interested in leaving Sweden. But this brings up the question, if the ruling government, the ruling party in Sweden is actually behaving this way towards Muslim families, I don't see why they would even be a radical hardline right wing anti Muslim, anti immigration opposition party. What would they be opposed to? The government is already atrocious towards Muslims.

So all I can say is verify information before you react to it. And if you can't verify the information, then your only reaction should be to press for access to better information. Now having said all of that, I do not recommend that Muslims should move to Sweden or to any non Muslim country if you can avoid it. And if you are a Muslim living in a non Muslim Sweden, or anywhere else, then I recommend that you try to leave if you can do so responsibly. But if you are there in Sweden or anywhere else, you're going to have to cope with the society as it exists and follow the rules as they are, and you cannot expect a non Muslim society to take responsibility for helping you to lead an Islamic life nor to help you become a better Muslim.

Maintaining your iman, raising your kids right is going to be harder, is going to be more challenging in that kind of an environment than it would be in a Muslim country, and you should know that going in. They have their beliefs, they have their values, they have their moral and ethical standards, and you should not expect them to be like yours. And, yes, you will be expected at some point and in some way to compromise in your beliefs, in your values, in your moral and ethical standards. And if you're surprised by that, then you have failed to understand what distinguishes a Muslim from a non Muslim. So my advice would be don't participate in this campaign.

Don't share sensationalistic, alarmist, unverified reports that may very well be disinformation. Again, anywhere that child protective services in any country where they have the power to remove children from the home because they believe that they are being mistreated in one way or another, Anywhere that that happens, there's gonna be some Muslims who are taken from their homes, and there will be some instances of abuse and wrongdoing. That doesn't mean that Muslims are being targeted. It means that Muslims are being affected by a flawed system that is affecting everyone.