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Abstract
The Swedish Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse and Neglect in Institutions and Foster Homes has interviewed 866 people who claim that they were subjected to neglect and abuse during their time in municipal or state care in Sweden. The inquiry has also examined many of the interviewees’ documentary records. This article is based on the interviews and documentary records for 140 individuals and raises questions about the possibilities of corroborating stories of abuse and neglect through documentary records. In this study we found that the interviewees and the records told similar stories about where the interviewee resided during care and the duration of placements. However, in details the sources represented different perspectives on the same individual’s history. Important aspects to take into consideration are that case files seldom reveal anything about abuse and neglect, and the tendency of authorities to make only cautious descriptions of suspected abuse. The study also highlights the differences between practices of recordkeeping which mean that some individuals can read extensive case files about themselves while other peoples’ care histories have left barely any trace in the archives. In this article, these findings are used to question expectations about the possibility of establishing one ‘truth’ of abuse in an individual case by collecting ‘evidence’ from several sources.
Notes
1. SOU 2011:61, Vanvård i social barnavård, Slutbetänkande av utredningen om vanvård i den sociala barnavården [Final report from the Swedish Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse and Negelct in Institutions and Foster Homes], Fritzez, Stockholm, 2011, p. 136.
2. Since the 1990s abuse and neglect in institutions and in foster homes for children in out-of-home care has been reviewed by inquiries and truth commissions in the following countries: Australia, Canada, Ireland, Norway, Iceland, Britain, Denmark, Germany and Sweden. State or regional commissions have interviewed or set up hearings with people that claim to have been subjected to abuse and neglect whiles in care.
3. Abuse and neglect in foster care is overlooked in the majority of the seven regional Norwegian inquiries, the Icelandic inquiries as well as in the Danish Godhavn inquiry. Abuse and neglect in foster care is mentioned but subordinated to institutional abuse in the Irish CICA Report, the Welsh Lost in Care Report, the Australian Bringing them Home Report as well as in some regional inquires in Australia on abuse of children in State care. See Rapport fra Granskningsutvalget for barneverninstitusjoner i Bergen, Rapport till Fylkesmannen i Hordaland, Fagbokforlaget Vigmostad og Björke, Bergen, 2003; Barneverninstitusjoner benyttet av Oslo kommune 1954−1993, Rapport till Fylkesmannen i Oslo og Akershus, Oslo, 2005; Rapport fra Granskingsutvalget for barnevernsinstitusjoner i Rogaland, Rapport till Fylkesmannen i Rogaland, Stavanger, 2006; Omsorg og overgrep. Gransking av barnehjem, skolehjem og fosterhjem benyttet av Trondheim kommune fra 1930-årene till 1980-årene, Rapport till Fylkesmannen i Sör-Tröndelag, Trondheim, 2007; Rapport fra Granskingsutvalget av barnehjem i Kristiansand, Rapport till Fylkesmannen i Vest-Agder, Kristiansand, 2007; Rapport fra Granskingsutvalget for barnehemmene i Finn-mark, Rapport till Fylkesmannen i Finnmark, 2008; Gransking av skole- og barnehjem i Aust-og vest-Agder, Rapport till Fylkesmannen i Vest-Agder, Kristiansand, 2009; Könnun á starfsemi Breiðavíkurheimilisins 1952–1979, Reykjavik, 2008; Áfangaskýrsla nr. 1. Könnun á starfsemi Heyrnleysingjaskólans 1947–1992, vistheimilisins Kumbaravogs 1965–1984 og skólaheimilisins Bjargs 1965–1967, Reykjavik, 2009; Áfangaskýrsla nr. 2. Könnun á starfsemi vistheimilisins Silungapolls 1950–1969, vistheimilisins Reykjahlíðar 1956–1972 og heimavistarskólans að Jaðri 1946–1973, Reykjavik, 2010; Rytter, Maria, Godhavnsrapporten: en undersøgelse af klager over overgreb og medcinske forsøg på børnehjem 1945–1976, Syddansk Universitetsforlag, Odense, 2011; CICA (The Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse), Commission Report, vols I–V, Dublin 2009; R Waterhouse, Report of the Tribunal of Inquiry into the Abuse of Children in Care in the Former County Council Areas of Gwynedd and Clwyd Since 1974, Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, London, 2000; HREOC (Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission), Bringing them Home: Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children From their Families, Sydney, 1997; Tasmanian Ombudsman, Listen to the Children: Review of Claims of abuse From adults in State Care as Children, Hobart, 2004.
4. The Minister of Children and the Elderly in the news program Rapport broadcast 10 September 2011. See < http://svt.se/2.22620/1.2530019/fosterhemsbarn_nekas_ersattning >, accessed 26 March 2012.
5. Richard Webster, The Secret of Bryn Estyn: The Making of a Modern Witch Hunt, The Orwell Press, Oxford, 2005; Mark Smith, ‘Historical Abuse and Residential Child Care: An Alternative View’, Practice, vol. 20, no. 1, 2008, pp. 32–36; Mark Smith, ‘Vicitim Narratives of Historical Abuse in Residential Child Care’, Qualitative Social Work, vol. 9, no. 3, August 2010, p. 315; Ron Brunton, ‘Betraying the Victims: The Stolen Generations’ Report’, IPA Backgrounder, vol 10, no. 1, February 1998, p. 5.
6. Smith, ‘Victim Narratves’, p. 306; Bain Attwood, Telling the Truth About Aboriginal History, Allen & Unwin, 2005, ch. 3; Rosanne Kennedy, ‘Stolen Generations Testimony: Trauma, Historiography, and the Question of “Truth”’, in Robert Perks and Alistar Thomson (eds), The Oral History Reader, Routledge, London & New York, 2006, p. 508.
7. Smith, ‘Historical Abuse’, ‘Victim Narratives’.
8. Attwood, Telling the Truth, pp. 58, 184–90.
9. Kennedy, ’Stolen Generations’, p. 511.
10. Marie Sallnäs, Barnavårdens institutioner: framväxt, ideologi och struktur, PhD Diss., Stockholm University, Stockholm, 2000, p. 121; Astri Andresen et al, Barnen och välfärdspolitiken: Nordiska barndomar 1900–2000, Institutet för Framtidsstudier, Dialogos förlag, Stockholm, p. 184.
11. Sallnäs, Barnavårdens institutioner, ch. 6.
12. SOU 2009:99, Vanvård i social barnavård under 1900-talet, Delbetänkande av utredningen om vanvård i den sociala barnavården [The second interim report from the Swedish Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse and Neglect in Institutions and Foster Homes], Fritzes, Stockholm, 2009, pp. 64–7.
13. Community Affairs References Committee, Forgotten Australians: A Report on Australians who Experienced Institutional or Out-Of-Home-Care as Children, first report 2004, ch. 9.
14. Marie Sallnäs, Bo Vinnerljung and Pia Khyle Westermark, ‘Breakdown of Teenage Placements in Swedish Foster and Residential Care’, Child and Family Social Work, vol. 9, 2004, p. 145; Forgotten Australians Report, p. 262; Carol Brennan, ‘Facing What Cannot be Changed: The Irish Experience of Confronting Institutional Child Abuse’, Journal of Social Welfare & Family Law, vol. 29, nos 3–4, Septemeber–December 2007, p. 247.
15. The information gathered by the inquiry on individuals’ personal circumstances is confidential in accordance with Section 3 of the Swedish Secrecy Ordinance. The materials collected are confidential for 70 years. The names given in the text are fictitious.
16. SOU 2009:99, p. 154.
17. Id. 1002, female born in the 1950s.
18. Id. 916, female born in the 1970s.
19. Socialstyrelsen [The National Swedish Board of Health and Welfare], Råd och anvisnignar i socialvårdsfrågor, no. 137, 1961, p. 49.
20. Id. 887, male born in the 1950s.
21. Id. 434, female born in the 1960s.
22. Id. 868, female born in the 1940s.
23. Id. 937, female born in the 1980s.
24. Id. 936, female born in the 1950s.
25. Id. 444, male born in the 1950s.
26. Id. 977, male born in the 1970s.
27. Id. 993, female born in the 1950s.
28. Id. 921, female born in the 1950s.
29. Id. 991, female born in the 1970s.
30. Id. 973, female born in the 1940s.
31. Id. 38, female born in the 1940s.
32. Id. 439, female born in the 1960s.
33. Id. 152, male born in the 1960s; id. 229 male born in the 1960s.
34. Note from a social worker in the case file of id 229, male born in the 1960s.
35. Webster, The Secret; Smith, ‘Historical Abuse’, ‘Victim Narratives’, p. 315; Brunton, ‘Betraying the Victims’, p. 5
36. For instance: The Residential Institutions Redress Board, A Guide to the Redress Scheme under the Residential Insitutions redress Act 2002, 3rd ed, Dublin, 2005, paragraph 36; Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee, Review of Government Compensation Payments, Canberra, 2010, p. 23.
37. SOU 2011:61, pp. 125, 128.
38. Brunton, ‘Betraying the Victims’.
39. SOU 2011:9, Barnen som samhället svek – åtgärder med anledning av övergrepp och allvarliga försummelser i samhällsvården, Betänkande av Upprättelseutredningen [Report from the Restitution Commission], Fritzes, Stockholm, 2011, p. 167.