Swedish plans for massdeportations lead to suicide attempts

Two suicide attempts have been done the last weeks, by young refugees in Sweden. Both were placed in the detentions, waiting to be deported to Afghanistan. 

On December 10, the Nobel prices will be handed out in Stockholm and Oslo. On December 11, a mass deportation to Afghanistan will take place. Manifestations against the deportations are planned on Monday in Stockholm and on Tuesday at Märsta detention, Stockholm. 

The suicide wave from 2017 among the unaccompanied youngsters has calmed down since the new law passed through, giving many of them possibilities to study on secondary school level. But it can increase again when an increasing number is threatened by detention and expulsion. Up to 5,000 are not included by the law. 

In accordance with the government's wish, more and more forced deportations to Afghanistan take place. They are partly performed secretly, one prisoner at a time, secret also for the controller, the Migration board. Partly they are performed in chartered aeroplanes, where around 20 refugees are handcuffed, given anxiolytics and sometimes salivary hoods.

Those deported are of various kind: fathers of infants who won't have a chance to see their children for many years, complete families with children who know nothing else than Sweden, single women who are expected to enter forced marriages, teenager boys who have never been to Afghanistan and hardly speak the language, minors where the authorities hope that there is some unidentified relative who will meet up. Besides these are deported, in obvious contradiction to human rights, Christians and atheists who must pretend being muslims and HBTQ-persons who have to pretend being straight.  

To get asylum, based on individual reasons, is today virtually impossible. Individual applications are rejected on a flat-rate basis. The officials try to find reasons to declare the asylum seeker "unbelievable" and his/her history as "not self-perceived". The courts accept the Migration Board's assessment without further analysis.

To get asylum of general reasons, such as that Afghanistan is dangerous everywhere for everyone, or that Hazara is a generally discriminated and persecuted people, is impossible under the temporary law 2016-2019.

Why don't they want to go to Afghanistan?

The number that accepts the "forced voluntary" travel to Afghanistan is exceedingly small. Almost everyone considers a life on the streets of Sweden (or Paris) is to prefer to a life on the streets in Kabul.

A life on the streets in Kabul? But do they not get support and help for reintegration? Well, on the paper. But can you reintegrate in a country you've never been to, at least not since you were very small? A country where you do not have a single relative who is on your side? Where your language directly tells that you are a "returnee"? Where you will not get a job or rent a home because you are a stranger?

How can you reintegrate in a country that is in dissolution? Where fewer and fewer of the official institutions work? Where the government cannot protect its own residents?

A worthy life is thus excluded - if you do not have friends in Sweden who can send you money. Otherwise, you will have to live on the street. Beg. Sell sexual favours. Perhaps you end up under the bridges as a drug addict. Or, if you are recruited by a militant group, you will learn how to kill and keep the conflict alive.

As a single woman, without a "protective" man, you get many difficulties to cope with. The risk of prostitution is high. As a child, you can count on child labour to get food in your little stomach. As an Hazara, you will have to expect hands-on discrimination and directed violence.

If you have relatives in Afghanistan, you are expected to repay the money borrowed for your flight. How can you do so when you cannot support yourself? At worst, you are threatened by relatives. There may also be old family feuds that make you directly threatened to life. And you cannot hide in Afghanistan for a long time ...

Better on the streets of Europe 

However, in Europe there is a kind of human worth. There are volunteers, both in Sweden and Paris, and you need seldom to starve for a long time. You meet friendly people who stand on your side. You may have personal Swedish friends besides your friends in similar situations. You have the network that most deported lack in Afghanistan.

So you stay. Walking around between friends, churches and night buses, trying to stay awake at school. Going to Paris, sleeping on the street without a tent, hoping to be "normal", i.e. that your fingerprints are not in the register so you can apply for asylum in France. In that case, you can start your life again with learning a new language, trying to find a job etc.

Some do not manage the press. They get in touch with the wrong people, get into drug trafficking, prostitution, maybe crime. But they are a clear minority. As long as we volunteers have energy, as long as we get resources (money), we keep many outside the shaded society.

Going to Afghanistan voluntarily - it's probably just a few brave Swedes who do that. To expel 5,000 young people takes time - many years. Meanwhile, we have them here, with us.

"Next week, I will not be here. I will kill myself instead of being tortured by the talibans", a young boy said in the microphone during a manifestation. "In Sweden I will be remembered and get a proper funeral. In Afghanistan my body will be thrown into a ditch", another had said.  

As volunteers we prevent suicides. We ought to get a Nobel price for this. No-one should be expelled to Afghanistan.

READ MORE

How safe is Afghanistan? Website for the international conference in Stockholm, Oct 4, 2018

How safe is Afghanistan? Facebook site

FACTS

In 2015, Sweden received 23,500 unaccompanied minors with Afghanistan citizenship. We opened our hearts, they were given school, shelter, protection. On November 24, a new temporary law was proclaimed, with the purpose to reduce the amount of asylum seekers. The asylum processes has been very prolonged, because of the heavy burden on the migration authorities, and 60 % became "adults", that is 18 years, before they got the first decision. A new law, July 2018, gave around 8,000 the possibility to stay for studies at secondary school level. However, up to 5,000 are not included in the law. 

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Author: Ingrid Eckerman, the Swedish network Stop deportations of Afghan youth!