1. Newcomers versus the
Scandinavian system of social care.
How to cover fairly the cases of
depriving immigrant parents of their
children?
2. • Nearly 500 thousand people from Poland,
Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia have decided to
seek a new job and a new life in Scandinavian
countries.
• Mutual satisfaction or misunderstanding of
the needs?
3. • What may happen when whole families with
children are involved in migration?
4. • Norway. Last year over 3 thousand immigrant
children (or from mixed marriages) were taken
away from their biological parents and put in
foster care.
• The reason was “the welfare of the child”.
5. • In most cases the reason they have been
deprived of their parental law in Scandinavian
states would not be sufficient in the courts of
their home countries.
6. • Journalists from Poland, and also from other
Eastern European countries have an extremely
difficult job to do while involved in covering
this kind of cases. Firstly, these cases are
emotional, and secondly because of the
reluctance of host countries’ social service
officials to share information about the case
with them
8. • One can very clearly see that the case was not
black and white.
9. • Information that in Scandinavian countries
“well being” of a child ranks much higher than
parental rights, information about the most
frequent reasons of losing children by migrant
parents and about the powers delegated to
social service workers should be given to any
newcomer willing to live in one of the
Scandinavian countries.
10. • I believe there is a job for us, journalists, as
well as a duty of politicians and diplomats to
react more efficiently to the cases of
separating children and their families abroad
