The Domenic Johansson Case: Holes in their heads

Holes in their heads

Maria Andersson's blogg, Världen idag, varldenidag.se - 2009-09-28
Translation: Ruby Harrold-Claesson, lawyer

The outright kidnapping of Domenic, the little boy the newspaper (Världen idag) The World Today has written about here, shows an ugly picture of the legal security afforded Swedish citizens. It becomes more and more obvious that things have gone wrong and that both the social services and the police have been reading the rule book backwards, with regard to what they should do when children are involved.

The trauma that the social services and police have inflicted on the whole family is arguably more serious than the "problems" they assumed existed when they staged the kidnapping. Moreover, it is very hard to believe that they really exhausted all possibilities to come to terms with the family and take into account the child's perspective, which is supposed to be the guiding star of social services, in their dealing with the matter.

The fact that Swedish authorities can harrass children and parents in this way is just further proof that it is time to clean up in the morass called Swedish social services.

The social services are supposed to provide support and assistance to people who for various reasons find themselves in a difficult situation. Many social workers do an incredibly important job, sometimes under difficult circumstances. But when they proceed in the manner they did to the Johansson family all your confidence in their entire rangs disappear. The question man on the street will be asking is: who will be hit next time - and for what?

In this case, social services now claim, under pressure, that the boy was taken into public care because he had holes in his teeth.. The social welfare officers on Gotland, the social council, the county court and the police all seem to be suffering from more serious problems than holes in their teeth.

Holes in their heads, rather.