Bittersweet Justice: Sweden UPDATED
The proposal to compensate abused foster children was given to the Minister for Elderly Care and Public Health on Thursday. “Children who were subjected to abuse in foster homes from 1920-1980 are set to receive 250,000 kronor ($38,500) per person in compensation and a public apology.”
Abused Foster Kids to Receive Compensation
[The Local 2/10/11 by TT/The Local/pvs ]
Update: 5000 foster children are estimated to receive the compensation. Some would like these benefits to extend to those abused in the 1980s and 1990s as well.
5000 former foster childs will get compensation
[Stockholm News 2/14/11 by Tommie Ullman]
Update 2: We had to amend the headlines on this story to Bittersweet Justice Now Just Bitter. The new announcement was NOT well-received.
“No money will be given to those affected, however, according to Maria Larsson, minister for children and elderly. The government’s explanation for this is that it would be impossible to hand out compensations to those exposed to maltreatment in a fair and legally secure manner.
Instead, the minister has promised that the foster care children will be receiving an apology from the state.
“I’ve understood that it’s very important for many that such a ceremony occurs. The government has decided to hold a ceremony, and invitations will be sent out shortly,” Larsson told TT.
Another of the government’s arguments for not giving economic reimbursement is that such a compensation would only cover those exposed to maltreatment during the years 1920-1980.
“It covers a very long period of time. And we know that people and groups in Sweden have been maltreated during this period, making it hard to favour one group,” she said.
Drawing the limit for remuneration at 1980 would mean discriminating those exposed to maltreatment at a later date.
“That could mean that a young person exposed to maltreatment in 1983 doesn’t receive the compensation as a person exposed to the same thing in 1953,” said Larsson.”
No money for abused foster kids: minister
[The Local 9/10/11]
Update 2:“Sweden’s opposition political parties are preparing a proposal to ensure that children who were neglected while in foster care will receive compensation despite a recent government announcement that no funds would be forthcoming.The initiative is backed by the Social Democrats, the Green Party and Left Party and has the support of the Sweden Democrats.The red-greens plan to propose to parliament that the government is tasked with developing a proposal for compensation to the victims of neglect.
Compensation should be based on the inquiry which is soon to be completed and whose proposals were published in a report last winter.
The three parties’ representatives in the Riksdag’s Social Services Committee said in a statement that the government’s decision, announced on Monday, means that these children will be let down once again.”
“The inquiry is due to present its completed findings in a couple of weeks and is based on interviews with 866 people. The oldest were born in the 1920s and the youngest in the 1980s.”
[The Local 9/12/11]
Update 3: A little less bitter today.
“The thousands of Swedes mistreated in foster care during the 1900s on Monday received an official apology from the state for having failed to provide them with a safe upbringing.
We apologize today for society’s betrayal,” the Riksdag speaker Per Westerberg said in front of a crowd of 1,300 gathered in Stockholm City Hall for the official reconciliation ceremony.
”Swedish society is today asking you, men and women, without reservations or extenuating circumstances, for forgiveness. The moral guilt is carried by the whole of Swedish society,” he said.
Westerberg stressed that all children are entitled to a loving and safe upbringing, and that a child should never be allowed to suffer when parents can’t live up to their responsibilities.
”Society was responsible for making sure that you were provided with a good upbringing, but instead you were abandoned.”
However, according to Westerberg, the revelations of abuse and neglect from the testimonies of the foster children has appalled all of society.
”And today Sweden officially admits its failure,” he said.
Swedish minister for the elderly, Maria Larsson, said in her speech that she had been deeply affected by the stories. That there had been no one who loved the children to hug them or who had listened to them.
”And if someone finally dared talk about their vulnerability, they weren’t believed. It is a unbearable thought. That a disconsolate child didn’t have one single person to lean on,” she said.
Larsson said that society should learn from what has been revealed and make sure that it never happens again.
”Childhood can’t be repeated. Lost opportunities can’t always be compensated, but we will do the best we can,” she said, stressing that society must now take every precaution to make sure that the same doesn’t happen again
A storm of protests in September forced the government to reverse an earlier decision that mistreated foster children would go without compensation for the abuse they suffered while in the care of the state.
Following the u-turn, the government agreed on a proposal that every person exposed to “abuse of neglect of a severe nature” between 1920 and 1980 should get 250,000 kronor ($38,000) in compensation.
The Riksdag, however, has yet to reach a decision regarding the matter.”
Mistreated foster kids receive official apology
[The Local 11/21/11]
Update 4: The government is finally making good on their proposal from late 2011 so we switched the name back to Bittersweet Justice.
“Sweden said Friday it had begun paying out 250,000 kronor (30,000 euros, $39,000) in compensation to Swedes who suffered abuse as foster children between 1920 and 1980, after rampant physical and sexual abuse was revealed.
A first group of 15 people were granted compensation on Friday.
They had all been subjected to “serious forms of abuse or neglect… for example repeated sexual abuse or systematic physical abuse while in an orphanage or foster care,” the head of the Swedish state’s newly established Compensation Committee, Goeran Ewerloef, said in a statement.
The committee was created after a 2011 government-commissioned report found that many children in foster care had suffered physical, psychological and sexual abuse and recommended that the state pay out compensation in “recognition of society’s betrayal of the victims of neglect and as a recognition of their suffering.”
According to the author of that report, Kerstin Wigzell, between 2,000 and 5,000 people still alive were foster children during the period 1920-1980.
The committee said Friday it had so far received some 2,200 requests for compensation. But it stressed that not all victims would be financially compensated.
“All forms of abuse and neglect of children are of course unacceptable. But the law is very clear, the compensation will only be granted to those people who were subjected to the most serious forms of abuse or neglect,” Ewerloef said.
Applicants have until the end of 2014 to seek compensation.
The 2011 report noted that many children in the care of the state still faced “serious neglect to an unacceptable extent”.
Neighbouring Norway’s parliament decided in 2005 to offer compensation to people who had been neglected and abused while in foster care of up to 200,000 kroner (26,500 euros, $34,400), although combined with compensation at a municipal level some former foster children reportedly received more than one million kroner.”
Sweden pays out first compensation to abused foster kids
[Global Post 3/22/13 by Agence France-Presse]
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