In my previous post on this topic, I mentioned that there would be a total of four videos about the abduction of children from Sweden. However, it appears there will be five, so this video is the third in a series of five.
I don’t understand the context of this excerpt from the documentary. The daughter of a man named Rasoul, who now lives in Iraq, was abducted by her mother to her (the mother’s) native Morocco. “Rasoul” is a Francophone spelling of an Arabic name. Is he a Moroccan, too? Or an Iraqi? It’s not clear.
The people in the clip who discuss and reminisce about Rasoul’s daughter talk about Christmas presents and appear relatively secular. Who are these people? Are they members of the family? Is Rasoul perhaps a Christian? It’s not clear.
Many thanks to Gary Fouse for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes and RAIR Foundation for the subtitling:
For the accompanying SVT article, see the previous post.
Video transcript:
| 00:04 | This is from her father, who also loves cars, who had bought her a car here. | |
| 00:09 | She was always playful and mischievous. | |
| 00:13 | It felt like a sense of security, which you still felt, which disappeared. | |
| 00:19 | And disappeared with her. | |
| 00:22 | Rasoul had gotten sole custody of his daughter. | |
| 00:25 | But during a visitation, the mother took her out of the country with her. | |
| 00:28 | Over Christmas she was with her mother, | |
| 00:31 | and she was supposed to come back, I think it was New Year’s Eve. | |
| 00:34 | We had gotten a bunch of Christmas presents for her. Among other things, I had bought this. | |
| 00:39 | We were looking forward to her coming home and we would give her Christmas presents, | |
| 00:45 | but then she didn’t show up. | |
| 00:48 | Rasoul fought to find his daughter for seven years. Today, he lives in Iraq. | |
| 00:52 | I suffer from panic attacks all the time, | |
| 00:57 | And that is why I left Sweden. In some way, when I am away, I am not reminded | |
| 01:04 | of the places I went with my daughter. | |
| 01:11 | As soon as I come back to Sweden, I end up depressed. | |
| 01:15 | After the decision on sole custody, the mother accused Rasoul of kidnapping the child. | |
| 01:19 | The court and social services maintained that the accusations were false. | |
| 01:22 | But during the investigation, the daughter disappeared. | |
| 01:25 | —Can you understand that people didn’t trust what you said? | |
| 01:29 | That social services did not believe you at first and had to investigate you? | |
| 01:33 | Yes, I understand. That is entirely normal, especially when it is a man. | |
| 01:41 | There were early suspicions of abduction. Rasoul wishes that his daughter | |
| 01:44 | had been protected during the investigation. | |
| 01:47 | Social services and family courts shut their eyes to everything I said. | |
| 01:52 | Rasoul has been to Morocco 18 times. Now he has paused the search for his daughter. | |
| 01:56 | The reason I have stopped the search for her is that I have no further means. | |
| 02:01 | I sold all I had in the five years, so I have no further means. | |
| 02:07 | Otherwise, I believe I would not give up. | |
| 02:10 | Did she like it a lot? —This? —Yes. | |
| 02:14 | She loved to play with it and always showed us. | |
| 02:20 | Do you still believe that it best for her to be reunited with you | |
| 02:24 | considering that she has been with her mother for so long? | |
| 02:27 | Yes, absolutely. I absolutely think it would be best for her. | |
| 02:31 | 916 children have been taken out of the country in the last five years. | |
| 02:34 | Rasoul’s daughter disappeared before the Foreign Ministry began keeping count. | |
| 02:37 | The best thing for me to do | |
| 02:40 | is just to meet her a couple of times and tell her | |
| 02:45 | that I won’t force her to go to Sweden. | |
| 02:48 | That’s what I think about most now. | |
| 02:51 | She will soon be ten years old. |