The videos below are the first two in a series of four excerpted from a documentary broadcast on Swedish television. They concern the growing problem of children who are being abducted from Sweden by a parent or other relative and taken abroad.

The narrator delicately refers to the abductions as having “an honor-related context”, which is a polite way of saying that everyone involved is a Muslim. The children are removed to their ancestral homelands by one or the other parent as part of a custody dispute, or to marry the child off, or to get a clitoridectomy performed.

Many thanks to Gary Fouse for the translations, and to Vlad Tepes and RAIR Foundation for the subtitling.

Video #1:

Video #2:

Videos #3 and #4 will be along later.

Below is the accompanying article from the Swedish public broadcaster SVT, also translated by Gary Fouse:

Examination: At least 916 children have been taken out of Sweden

At least 916 children have been taken out of Sweden during a five-year period. Over 400 children have been taken to countries with which Sweden has a cooperative arrangement under the Hague Convention, but there is still a large problem when a child is detained, SVT’s continuing investigation on child abduction shows.

“I want more people to know that this can happen,” says Lara, who was able to get her children back home when the father kept them in Turkey as part of a custody dispute.

The majority of abductions happen within an honor-related context. Children are taken on “educational trips” or to be married off, or for genital mutilation. Last year almost half of the honor-related cases were to Somalia and Iraq. But more and more of the cases involve custody disputes. Most of the children are taken to countries where the Hague Convention does not apply. In that case, Sweden has little chance of getting the child back.

Hala’s daughter was one of these children. She was taken to Jordan by her father when she was 8 years old. In a few months, the daughter will be 18 and will marry.

Hear Hala tell about her daughter’s abduction in the video clip below. Here are parts of the investigation in Arabic.

Many abducted children involved in custody disputes

To try and get children back is not only difficult and time-consuming, but it is also costly. Rasoul’s 3-year-old daughter was kidnapped by her mother around Christmas 2016. Rasoul had just won a long custody dispute and gotten sole custody of the child. Then her mother decided to take the child to her native Morocco.

“Hope that she will come back never disappears,” says Rasoul. But after 18 trips to Morocco and hundreds of thousands of kronor that went to lawyers and private detectives, he has had to temporarily pause the search.

Hear him tell about the fight to get his daughter back in the video clip below.

Half of the children got no protection — despite requests for travel bans

A tool social services have to try and stop children from being abducted is the law on travel bans. Only one-half of children, however, received protection when social services sought a travel ban since the law came into effect in 2021, SVT’s examination shows.

The new law didn’t help Sandra’s children, who were taken to Saudi Arabia when they were one and three years old, despite the fact that she had expressed her worry about that even before their birth.

“If only someone had reported their concern, then I might have understood how dangerous the situation was, “ she says.

The hospital never reported to social services although they wrote in their files that they should. When Sandra then asked for protection for her other two children, they too did not get a travel ban.

Hear her tell about missing her children in the video clip below.

Only a third come back

More than 400 have been taken to countries with which Sweden has developed a cooperative arrangement under the Hague Convention, but it is still a big problem when a child is detained, SVT’s continuing examination on child abductions shows. But it is getting easier.

“I want more people to know that this can happen,” says Lara, who managed to get her children home when the father kept them in a custody dispute in Turkey. There may be a different legal system in other countries, where they can more easily get sole custody. But help is available.

Video transcript #1:

Video transcript #2: