Swedish social services took my children from me in September 2019.
It all started several years ago. My son, Eric, has various illnesses. He has epilepsy, small cerebral bleeding which caused a delay in the corporal functions resulting in a slight weakness on one side of the body and fecal and urinary incontinence. He also has ADD and Aspergers. (I am a medical doctor, so understand all these conditions.)
Eric attended a regular school. These clinical conditions, although mild (since epilepsy responded well to treatment) required that my son needed extra support at school. The school, however, did not give him the required support.
My son was attending school despite all this and doing pretty well academically. However, the teachers did not want to help him with going to the bathroom ( since that required cleaning him and changing his clothes) ”We are teachers, not nurses”- they told me
The school staff preferred to leave him all day without helping him. He had incontinence pads and all the classmates knew about this situation since the staff did not want to change them.
I began to pressure the school to help him with the support and little by little my conflict with the principal began. The principal said that my son had the necessary help but my son regularly came home from school sad because the classmates made fun of him.
Eric was bullied.
And the conflicts escalated. My only interest was to protect my son. The principal tried to defend his position and his staff, above the interest of my child. The more I wanted to protect my son, the more problems I had at my son’s school.
But in Sweden, one cannot complain much. The schools have agreements with the local authority and when a father or mother starts to be “annoying”, they always have a way of threatening the family by making a ”concern report”. In Sweden, it is called ”orosanmälan”.
Then, my child was physically abused -hit- at school by an adult member of staff. (He ended up with bruises to his arm from physically being dragged by the assistant teacher.) After that Eric didn´t want to go to school. The school denied the allegations of abuse, despite the physical marks and claimed he was lying.
Social Services were called in. No documentation was found about the issue of violence against my son.
On top of everything, the social workers made a request to take the child because I was “encouraging him and letting him not go to school” … therefore drawing him into an adult conflict.
All of a sudden, the police showed up are my door to took my child away.
They also took my daughter, Anna- 1 year younger.
There never was any ”concern report” about her.
When my kids were first taken, they came back home after a week. The social authorities did not see that it was necessary to protect the children immediately. The moment I had my kids back, at the social services office, my son had an epileptic seizure because the social secretary didn’t take the antiepileptic medicine with her and -although I provided the social services with medicine- my son was not given his medicines for a week.
This upset me, so made the biggest mistake of my life: I reported the social secretary to the police and then the nightmare really began.
The same social worker who endangered Eric’s life, who I reported to the police, now started a new investigation against me.
I asked the social services manager to have another person investigate our case, but she refused.
I requested the head of the department to assign a different case worker, but that fell on deaf ears. I didn’t know at the time, what I’ve learned from talking to many people since: when social services in Sweden do something wrong, they are going to make it worse for you if you complain!
A couple of irregularities of my case:
- eventhough I moved to a new kommun (district), who had the obligation to carry out the investigation into the welfare of the children, the case was never transferred;
- the social services investigation was completed in just 7 days and they told me that they were going to take my children from me since I was misbehaving.
- The social service accused me of many things- conflict with authorities, violence and withholding medical attention from my children- most of these trumped up accusation had absolutely no basis.
I used the time to try to prove my innocence: This is so unfair because in normal democracies the accuser is supposed to prove the accusation, but not in Sweden!
When the parent appeals against the allegations, then the authorities – both social services and subsequently the courts- hold it against the parent, saying that they use their time trying to prove innocence instead of looking at their own mistakes. In my case, the court has stated in its decision that I had no idea of how my behaviour in conflict with the school and the doctors affects my children and imply this will badly affect their development.
I hope you can see the irony of the accusation that my children did not have good medical care, as I am a medical doctor! My children actually had good medical care, but society needed one more excuse to be able to validate taking the children.
In Sweden, there is an institute called Barnahus, which is an institution that works for social services: the police and doctors work together there. This is where child interrogations happen, where the different authorities sit together with Social services; This is where social services takes notes for their “investigation”.
It took me over a year to get another meeting with Barnahus and ask the doctors there to re-examine the documentation related to the healthcare of my children. It was only after this meeting, that I confronted the medical staff with the allegation and the specific incidences held against me, that we reviewed the medical files and the doctors conceded that my medical choices for my children were in fact totally correct. It took over a month, and the submission of recordings and transcripts from the meeting that Barnahus issued an official report that contradicted Social services’ allegations.
Since 2019 September, I have not seen my children in person, not been able to hug them, kiss them, they have been moved 400 km away from Stockholm, into the woods, isolated.
They have been taken away from their sports activities- competitive swimming and figure skating.
Eric is failing in many subjects, which he was doing well with before. I was a single parent, holding down a demanding job, yet I always found was to support him in learning.
I am from Mexico originally and we used to speak Spanish with the children.
Now, we only see eachother for an hour every 2-3 weeks (sometimes Social services has left it for many more weeks) over skype with the supervision of a social secretary. We are not allowed to speak Spanish.
The children have been refused access to their family, their heritage, their culture.
It sounds so unbelievable, right? Surely, there are checks and balances and the legal system to turn to and appeal Social services’ decisions, right?
WRONG!
Sweden is a socialist democracy. The state has control over you, and your own children are actually not your children. They are the state’s children. The state has the power to remove kids from their families based on social secretaries writing a document saying that the parents are not good enough. That document does not need to be proven since the state authorities never lie.
When a parent with goes to court, the court doesn’t require social services to prove that they have carried out a secure investigation, considered all factors and all options before taking an excessive action of taking children from their home- in normal societies only reserved as a last resort. Instead, the courts look for parents to accept the Social Services actions (as soc are the “professionals”) and accept the allegations. I other words, in order to have your children back you must face and “correct” the behaviour that you, as a parent, have been accused of.
However, the cycle is never-ending: just when you tick one thing off your offenses list by providing evidence against it in court, new offenses appear, as well as Social services pulling up old allegations already disproven in court. It is utter chaos!
I have been attending parenting classes, trying to make myself a better parent, I went to therapy to deal with my cooperation difficulties.
For months, the social secretary refused to meet with me to discuss the next steps: When I went to meet social services with a lawyer to have clarity on what I needed to do to get my children back, the social secretary ended contact with me and accused me of not being receptive to changes.
Social services have not updated their care plan in light of court rulings.
My children have asked for help from a charity called Barnrattsbyran, lawyers who are there to help children validate their rights under the UN child convention, which was incorporated into law 2 years ago. They asked to know why they are taken, get help to come back to live with me and to be able to spend time with their family, who are in Mexico. Sadly, even a charity (part-funded by Stockholm kommun) is not standing up to the abuses of human rights of children taken under the compulsory protective order of LVU. We have seen half-hearted progress since June 2021, when the children made a frantic call with a borrowed phone. I may now see my children in person in March 2022.
Please keep your prayers with us- me, Eric and Anna.