European Somali Children Dumped? On families, parents, and children in a transnational context

Abstract

Transnational familyhood is a challenge to western societies, whose implementation of legislation generally works with the assumption that families are nuclear and situated within a nation state. In the present case study, Somali transnational family organisation is juxtaposed with the western nuclear family model to illustrate the basic differences between the models. The mobility of children in the Somali family system is discussed in relation to child protection in European societies. Cultural variation in family organisation needs to be further discussed in societies that claim to be multicultural. The nature of child protection interventions by social workers will depend on whether society declares universalist or cultural-relativist values as more important.

Transnationella familjer utmanar västerländska samhällen, eftersom dessa länder tillämpar en lagstiftning som utgår ifrån antagandet att familjer är kärnfamiljer som vistas inom gränserna för en nationalstat. I artikeln jämförs den transnationella somaliska familjeformen med den västerländska kärnfamiljsmodellen för att påvisa de grundläggande skillnaderna mellan modellerna. Hur barn är mobila i den somaliska familjemodellen diskuteras i relation till socialtjänstinsatser i Europa. Kulturell variation i hur familjer organiseras behöver diskuteras mer i samhällen som säger sig vara mångkulturella. Interventioner för barns bästa kommer i slutändan att präglas av huruvida samhällen anser att universalistiska eller kulturrelativistiska värden ska väga tyngst.

Keywords:

• child welfare
• Somalis
• family relationships
• migration
• immigration
• transnationalism

Nyckelord:

• Socialtjänsten
• barnavårdsutredningar
• somalier
• familj
• migration
• invandring
• transnationalism

Acknowledgements

I am deeply grateful to Dr. Erica Righard, who generously supplied new references and offered helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Also, I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for the careful, critical reviews, and useful comments. This material is based upon work supported by the Swedish Research Council.

Notes on contributor

Johnsdotter, Sara (b. 1965). Professor at the Department of Social Work at the Faculty of Health and Society, specialized in Medical Anthropology after a PhD in Social Anthropology in 2002. Her research concerns the Somali group in Sweden, with a special focus on female circumcision and sexual health among Swedish Somalis.

Notes

1. In Somalia they are called dhaqan celis, literally meaning ‘cultural reimmersion’ (Samatar, 2011, p. 509). In Abdile and Pirkkalainen (2011) the term is said to describe ‘[the one] bringing back corrupted Western habits and is in need of cultural reorientation’ (p. 60).

2. The Swedish Board of Health and Welfare, which is the government agency supervising social work provided by regulatory authorities, frequently publishes information about rules and regulations. In one such information sheet the policy regarding so-called ‘dumped’ children was clarified; in practice leading to new guidelines among locally based governmental social workers (SoS 2004/2006). In addition, the Stockholm County Board issued a sharp warning on 9 January 2006 to the Social Services Committee in Nacka, responsible in the case of Ahmed and Nimo. According to the County Board, the committee had shown ‘an astonishing lack of child perspective and sense of responsibility.’ (Press release, at http://projektwebbar.ab.lst.se/templates/PressRelease____8230.asp ) Such warnings also work to regulate local practice.

3. Governmental bill 2005/06:JuU37. The new legislation was issued on July 1, 2006.

4. In Sweden in 2009, 86% of all children aged 1–5 were placed in daycare centres, according to the Swedish government's website (regeringen.se).

5. Somali names are constructed thus: the first name is a boy's or a girl's name, the second name is the father's first name, the third name is the paternal father's first name.

6. ‘Cousin’ in the Somali family system is a flexible category: in any given social context the clan relatives closer to a person than any of the others present are those who will be called ‘cousins’ when introduced.