– It is very difficult to make parents responsible, says she, who is trying to help Norwegian-Somali children home. The Norwegian-Somali 19-year-old told his friends in Elverum in advance. He was going to Somalia to celebrate a wedding, his parents had told him. But he had a suspicion. This is what Julie Holst, one of the boy’s friends, told news today. – He said that if something happens to me, if I don’t contact you, then you must report it to the police. So even the day he was at Gardermoen before he left for Somalia, he sent a message and said that if I don’t answer within four hours every single day, you must contact the police, says Julie Holst. From Somalia, he sent this message to friends: – Then what we feared happened, says Julie Holst. They did not get in touch with him. She went to the police in Elverum and reported the case. The police eventually brought charges against the parents for gross deprivation of liberty not only of the 19-year-old, but against three other siblings. Julie Holst got involved when she realized that a friend had been taken to Somalia. Photo: Reidar Gregersen / news Now, four years later, the parents are still charged, says Henning Klauseie, police attorney at Elverum. The 19-year-old and his little brother are supposed to be back in Norway, but the police believe two of the children are still in East Africa. Therefore, they uphold the charge. – The case is an example of how difficult it is to get parents convicted in such cases, says Klauseie to news. He lists two problems in such cases. The children are often in countries with which Norway has limited legal cooperation. Children are often taken out of the country quickly. We first know they are gone when they don’t show up for school or don’t come to nursery school. Then we will be running after, quite simply. Children often have objections to explaining themselves to their parents. It is due to loyalty, they do not want their parents in prison. Henning Klauseie is a police attorney at Elverum in the Innlandet Police District. Photo: Tormod Strand / news In the case from Elverum, the two brothers explained to the police afterwards that they were there voluntarily, and that the parents had done nothing wrong. The police believe this is an adapted explanation to protect the parents. Brothers with chains around their legs Henning Klauseie shows pictures of two of the brothers from what looks like somewhere in Africa. Both have some form of chain between the ankles. – We were sent these photos from friends here in Elverum, which show that they are tied with chains between their legs. Together with messages on social media to friends, it forms the basis for us to believe they were in a situation where they cannot move as they want. And that they were placed somewhere against their own will, in a kind of Koranic school, says Klauseie. Another of the brothers, together with his father. Photo: private In the photo, a chain can be seen between the legs of the boy. Photo: private – The thing about the chain, why is it important in terms of evidence? – Binding children and young people with chains in that way will firstly prevent their freedom of movement purely physically, but it is also part of a larger control regime which I believe is important when it is a deprivation of liberty, which we believe this to be. One of the brothers on a chair, with a chain between the legs. Photo: private The father’s lawyer, Jostein Løken, does not want to comment on the case. news has not been able to get hold of the father. Løken has previously said that the father denies that the boys have gone to Koranic school, and that he has not forced the boys to go to Africa. Few are investigated news reported yesterday about an increase in Norwegian-Somali children begging the Norwegian authorities for help, after their parents sent them to, among other things, brutal Koranic schools in Somalia. Are Norwegian-Somali parents investigated and convicted for having left their children abroad? news contacted the Norwegian Police Directorate, but they had no information there. news then contacted all 12 police districts. The question we asked was whether they had cases where parents have been charged, prosecuted or convicted for having left their own children abroad. Several of the police districts replied that this required a manual review, which they did not have the capacity for. Some of the police districts had investigated such cases, but most were dropped. A few cases are ongoing, among them the case in Elverum. Of judges, the police have referred to a judgment from Buskerud, where a Norwegian citizen immigrated from Sudan was convicted, among other things, of having taken his own children out of the country and evading the children from their mother’s care. The verdict is from last year. In the Oslo district court, a man was sentenced to prison for one year for gross neglect of care after traveling with his son to Somalia, then leaving him with a foreign family in Kenya. The judgment is final. – It must be possible to make demands on the parents Sahfana Ali Mubarak works to help Norwegian children and young people who have been involuntarily left abroad. She is special envoy for integration at the Norwegian embassy in Kenya. Almost all cases she works on have to do with Somalia. She sees that there are very few cases that turn into criminal cases, when the children and young people return home after being left behind involuntarily in Somalia and Kenya. This upsets her. – Because it must be possible to make demands on the parents, who are often in Norway while they leave their children in their country of origin where they risk being exposed to serious violence, says Ali Mubarak. Sahfana Ali Mubarak is special envoy for integration at the Norwegian embassy in Kenya. She mostly only works with cases from Somalia. Photo: Vegard Tjørhom / news She is concerned that the police should be given the authority to do more. – The solution often lies in Norway. The police can call the parents in for an interview, and hold them accountable. But in most cases we see that the police refuse to do so, because they believe they do not have the authority to call the parents in for such a conversation, she says. Ali Mubarak also learns that the children often do not want their parents to be involved or held accountable. All they want is to come back home to Norway. Sahfana Ali Mubarak calls for better legal tools to stop the problem of involuntarily abandoned children. – We must get changes to the penal code, which have been discussed for a long time, including so that violence at Koranic schools, which is not punishable in Somalia, can still be punished in Norway, she says. The Norwegian Criminal Code applies as a general rule to offenses committed in Norway. For an act abroad to be punishable in Norway, the act must also be punishable in the country where the act took place. Many of the acts that children and young people are subjected to, for example in Somalia, are not punishable there. Mubarak Ali and many experts want the requirement that the offenses must be punishable in both countries to be changed. Exceptions have already been made for cases concerning forced marriage and genital mutilation. Mubarak Ali and several other experts believe that these exceptions should also apply in cases of deprivation of liberty and abuse in close relationships. This was proposed in a report written by an expert group that was set up after news’s revelations about Koranic schools in Somalia in 2017 and 2018. The expert group proposed several legal changes, including the removal of the requirement for double criminality. In Denmark, it is a criminal offense to send children abroad if the children’s health and development are endangered. Parents also risk deportation, according to the law that came in 2019. In 2021, a Danish-Somali father was deported for sending two of his children to Somalia. – It is a form of discrimination Researcher Anja Bredal led the work in the expert group. She is upset that the report, which was submitted four years ago, has received so little follow-up, including this with double criminality. – In a state governed by the rule of law, changing the law must take time. But here it seems as if this has just been left in a drawer in the Ministry of Justice. We have waited a very long time, and it is somewhat typical for this field that there is only action when media such as news take it up, but shortly after that nothing happens, says Bredal. Anja Bredal is one of Norway’s foremost researchers on violence in close relationships and challenges with integration in Norway Photo: NOVA The Ministry of Justice replies in an e-mail to news that the proposal is now under consideration by the ministry. The proposal was submitted for consultation four years ago, in autumn 2020. Anja Bredal is one of Norway’s foremost researchers on violence in close relationships and challenges with integration in Norway. She says the legislation in this area is complex and contradictory when it comes to children. The right parents have to decide on their own children stands strong, for example where they will live. At the same time, parental responsibility obliges parents to prevent their children from being exposed to violence and abuse. – We need case law in this area, so the courts can clarify the legal provisions and guide the police. Both when it comes to children under 18 and young adults, says Bredal. The Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Labor and Inclusion write in an e-mail to news that there will be an investigation from a law committee shortly. Among other things, the committee will look at whether there is a need for clearer provisions in the Criminal Code, so that parents can be held responsible if children are sent to stay abroad against their will. Bredal is also critical of the police’s handling of these cases. – I see that these matters are complicated. At the same time, I think it is also about priorities and choices. And one can sometimes wonder if these cases are given a lower priority because they are about children with connections to other countries who are not seen as being as “Norwegian” as ethnically Norwegian children, says Bredal. – If such gross violence as we see in some of these cases had happened to children named Ola and Kari, we would have seen a completely different involvement, and we would have had more cases that were investigated and taken to court, Bredal believes. She believes it is a form of unconscious discrimination, that the police and other authorities do not think of them as Norwegian children. – It is a form of discrimination, says Anja Bredal to news. The Norwegian Police Directorate believes that it is the Attorney General who should respond to this criticism, but the Attorney General does not wish to comment. – He had become a slightly different boy Julie Holst believes that the fact that she and the 19-year-old’s friends reported the parents contributed to the boy’s return to Norway. She met him after he returned to Norway. – He had become a slightly different boy. He showed us marks after being whipped, he told us about serious violence, says Julie Holst. Julie Holst is glad that she went to the police. Photo: Reidar Gregersen news has not succeeded in making direct contact with the man, but via friends he says that he does not want to talk to news. Julie Holst is no longer in contact with him, but says she is glad that they reported the parents, although she is disappointed that more has not happened in the matter. – It is a serious violation of your human rights that young people are left abroad in this way. Someone takes your life away, in a way. And then it is overlooked, there is no focus on this. It is a failure in our society that this happens, says Holst.
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– If such violence had happened to “Ola”, we would have seen more cases – news Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country
