– I get depressed, angry and sad. That should not happen, says Dag Inge Ulstein (KrF). He reacts strongly to the story news told at the weekend about the 9-year-old who disappeared when he was going out shopping. The entire Storting was shaken when news revealed last year that over 400 unaccompanied children and young people who applied for asylum in Norway from 2015 were rarely looked for when they disappeared from reception or care centres. The 9-year-old is one of these children. Following the disclosure, the police blamed their own lack of investigation, and the government demanded that the police and other actors must do a better job. Nevertheless, there are still children who disappear and are not looked for. Researchers chastise the police work – This is a moral disgrace to Norway’s status as a humanitarian rule of law. Politicians must now stop with rhetorical exercises and concentrate on actual measures. It is Egil Hove Olsvik, associate professor at the Norwegian Police Academy, as tora. He has researched how the police have handled reports of missing asylum-seeking children and young people, and is not generous in his analysis. – There is often a perception that the child or young person has disappeared voluntarily. This has consequences for further investigations. The methodology is well known, but it is not put into practice. Hove Olsvik estimates that around 10 per cent of the 400 who are missing have not left voluntarily. – It may look as if approximately 15 serious incidents have not been investigated at all. This is where asylum seekers who may be exposed to human trafficking, are suicidal, involved in drug trafficking or have severe PTSD are notified. He calls it a “legal scandal, which violates both Norwegian law and the Convention on the Rights of the Child”. – It is serious that the cases are not prioritized with the same degree of dignity as other children, says the researcher. Egil Hove Olsvik is an associate professor at the Norwegian Police Academy. Photo: Philip Hofgaard Five parties demand an explanation from the government Now five opposition parties are joining together to demand that the government come and explain to the Storting about the matter. – We want to know what is happening in the government to follow up on this, says Birgit Oline Kjerstad, asylum policy spokesperson for SV. Together with KrF, Raudt, Venstre and the Green Party, she challenges both Minister of Justice Emilie Mehl (Sp) and Minister for Children and Families Kjersti Toppe (Sp) to clean up. Toppe is responsible for unaccompanied minor asylum seekers under the age of 15 who live in a care center under the auspices of child protection, while Mehl is responsible for those who live in reception. – They must come to the Storting and tell what has been done, what they intend to do next, and what they have failed to do. We must get an answer to this now, says Dag Inge Ulstein in KrF. – These are vulnerable children who are under the protection of the Norwegian state. Then we have a clear responsibility on the part of both the Storting and the government to make sure that things that don’t work are put right, says Kjerstad. CHALLENGING THE GOVERNMENT: This gang asks two ministers to come to the Storting. Former Dag Inge Ulstein (KrF), Birgit Oline Kjerstad (SV), Tobias Drevland Lund (R) and Ingvild Wetrhus Thorsvik (V). MDG’s Lan Marie Berg was not present when the photo was taken. Photo: Silje Rognsvåg / news – A heavy burden of proof The five parties proposed this winter to investigate what has happened to the many asylum children and young people. It was voted down by Høgre, Frp and the government party this spring, who believed that an investigation would delay any measures that were underway. Lan Marie Berg is deputy head of MDG. Photo: William Jobling / news – There is a heavy burden of proof on the government and the major parties that the measures that have been implemented actually work, says Lan Marie Berg, deputy head of the MDG. Raudt’s Tobias Drevland Lund recalls that the Storting decided in 2015 that all asylum children must be treated in the same way as Norwegian children. – We have reason to believe that this does not happen in practice. An explanation is a necessary follow-up of the hundreds of children who have disappeared in recent years. It is our children and our responsibility, says Lund. Ulstein points out that Norwegian children are being searched for with helicopters, heat-seeking cameras and security guards. – There are small children here that no one has looked for. The probability that they are exposed to serious crime is high, says the KrF politician. Criticizes changing guidelines A working group proposed several changes in ours. Now the police must be notified within 24 hours both in a new digital form and by telephone (see fact box). The Norwegian Police Directorate informs news that they are now developing digital solutions to collaborate across agencies. The conclusions of the working group Spring 2023, a working group worked to improve the routines when asylum children disappear. The working group consisted of the Directorate of Police (POD), the Directorate of Immigration (UDI), the Directorate of Children, Youth and Families (Bufdir) and the Norwegian Agency for Children, Youth and Families (Bufetat). They agreed on the following routines: Reception and care centers must notify missing unaccompanied minor asylum seekers no later than 24 hours after they have left. First, they must send a digital report form, before they call the police. Then the police must “consider further follow-up of the report”. More details about the missing asylum child must be included in the report form, including the child’s belongings, what they have and haven’t brought with them, about finances and the opportunity to obtain information about card use. The police themselves must check which cases that may have been registered on it are missing. Reception and childcare do not have access to it. A separate form has been created which the reception and care center must send to the police when a missing asylum child is found again. From now on, it is the Norwegian Police Directorate, and not the UDI, that will answer questions about statistics on how many people have been formally reported missing to the police. The reason is that “it is the police who have the correct figures”. A requirement to meet physically with the police must be based on a letter from POD in 2016 about routines for notification and follow-up. Furthermore, words such as “disappeared” and “disappear” are changed to “abandoned” and “leaves” in the routine descriptions from 2016. The agencies are still working on introducing the changes. But the opposition party is not satisfied with what has happened so far. Venstre’s Ingvild Wetrhus Thorsvik points to the wording in the new guidelines that the police must “consider further follow-up of the report” when there is a notification of missing asylum children and young people from reception and care centres. She thinks it’s too woolly. – I think that these guidelines should be much clearer than they are now, says Thorsvik. – The mere fact that this has been allowed to happen again, as shown by news, shows that more needs to be done. We cannot give up until this never happens again, says the Liberal spokesperson. FRP demands concrete action The FRP also believes that the government must answer for itself. – What I react to is that it seems that the system is clearly not working. What is needed is concrete action. Changes need to be made here, and I expect the government to actually address it, both in the short and long term, says Erlend Wiborg, FRP’s asylum spokesperson. The government has received the criticism, but has so far not wished to comment.
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Five parties demand that the government come to the Storting and find out about asylum children – news Vestland
