Sweden: What ‘Humanitarian Superpower’?
by Judith Bergman, Gatestone Institute:
In October, Sweden, which apparently likes to see itself as a “humanitarian superpower,” decided to expel and deport a 6-year old boy to the Ukraine. The boy had been technically orphaned when his mother died and his father, who lives in the Ukraine, formally renounced custody of his child in a Ukrainian court. The boy, Denis, has no other relatives in the Ukraine and would therefore have to go straight to an orphanage.
In 2015, Denis’s mother brought him from the Ukraine to Sweden — where his mother’s parents were already living. She applied for a residence permit for herself and her son, but it was rejected, for reasons apparently still undisclosed. News outlets do not seem to have been digging into why her original request was rejected. The Swedish Migration Agency (Migrationsverket) decided to deport Denis, even though he is living with his maternal grandparents, who have applied to adopt the child.
Denis “has not given probable cause that he will not be suitably taken care of upon [his] return to Ukraine” wrote the migration authority in its decision. They also mystifyingly referred to the decision as being “in the child’s best interest”.
That the boy is technically an orphan and that his grandparents, with whom he lives in Sweden, have begun adoption proceedings, is not enough to stop the deportation, said Karin Fährlin, unit head at Migrationsverket.
“This is a matter of… a boy who is a Ukrainian citizen, and then it is primarily family, or the father, or Ukrainian authorities who must answer for this child. That’s the reason [for the deportation]”, she said.
The decision to deport Denis, after it became known to the public in Sweden, caused an enormous scandal. More than 60,000 Swedes signed a protest against the deportation on Facebook and several celebrities and politicians expressed their revulsion over the decision. “His mother just died. He has no father. He is six years old and cannot stay with his grandparents in Sweden but will be deported to a Ukrainian orphanage. This is inhuman and disgusting,” wrote one TV personality, Jessica Almenäs.
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