Finnish authorities seized the daughter of a mouther and forbade to communicate, because so decided one employee of the guardianship service

In the town of Rakula in Eastern Finland social services took away twelve-year-old daughter at the Russians Elena Smolanczuk for what she allegedly slapped the girl t-shirt. But the real reason was the conflict between the teachers of the school, where the child was studying, and the girl's mother: the woman tried to protect her daughter from attacks by classmates because of her Russian origin. Human rights activists claim, that due to the peculiarities of the Finnish juvenile justice now return the child to his family will not be easy.

Says local human rights activist Johan Beckman, who is engaged in protecting the rights of Russian-speaking residents:

"The situation is as follows: the eldest daughter Helen went to school, where he was attacked by classmates because of her Russian origin. Unfortunately, this is not uncommon in Finland, where Russian-speaking residents are discriminated against in schools. And then the girl's mother complained about other children to teachers. And they blamed the woman in the wrong upbringing of children and called child protective services".

The incident occurred at the end of September 2017, but it became widely known about it only recently. Finnish social services have an unspoken attitude, according to which in the tradition of Russian-speaking families allegedly accepted to beat children. Therefore, they easily make decisions to remove the child from the family. The family, from which they took the girl, is quite well. Smolyanchuk lives with her husband-Finn in Finland for 15 years, during this time the couple did not have any conflicts, none of those who know her, has no information, that this family has problems with alcohol or domestic violence. Moreover, in this marriage were born two children: the eldest, 12 years old, and the youngest daughter, who is nine. Now the girl is in foster care, and during this time the mother gave the opportunity only once to meet with her daughter.

"At the same time, they were forbidden to communicate in Russian. And when the daughter of Smolanczuk told her mouther "I want to go home!", the government of Finland adopted an additional decision is to interrupt any communication between the girl and her birth parents," said the defender.

Absurdity situation adds the fact, that one child was seized, and the second — left in the family. That is, it turns out that for the second girl in the family the situation is safe, and the danger does not threaten her!

According to information, while there are no fundamental changes in this situation, the child's have not yet returned to parents.The situation is complicated by the peculiarities of Finnish legislation in the field of juvenile justice. Under Finnish law, the decision to remove a child is not taken by a court or any other authority, but by a social worker alone. This person is guided by his personal, sometimes subjective opinion, and this decision can not be appealed, because no one but the social service can not cancel it.

In the last few years, there have been several scandals in Finland related to the seizure of Russian children from their families. So, Victoria Medvedeva took three children-twins right from kindergarten where they went. The woman herself is not a Finnish citizen, and worked there under contract and lived on a work visa. The reason for the removal of triplets was the call of anonymous, who said that the woman allegedly beats their children.

In 2014, the Russian Alexandra Fomina living in the city of Vantaa, have withdrawn nine-year-old daughter. Shortly before Alexander's event quarreled with the daughter. The daughter was capricious, and Alexandra said that she would not buy a dog or a Bicycle for her birthday, Then the daughter was bitten by a friend who walked with the dog on the street, and she, in turn, appealed to social services.

In the end, the girl was withdrawn from school after school, and the mother received a call from social services care. At that time, she was divorced from her husband-Finn, but the couple maintained a good relationship. The former spouse immediately joined this situation and tried to do everything to make the child either returned to me or gave it to him. However, all its efforts have not been successful.

According to Finnish law, after social services take away children, they are sent to the state shelter, and then transferred to the foster family or to private orphanages. Foster parents are paid a monthly allowance of one thousand euros, which is not taxed. Return the child then is extremely difficult, it is necessary to sue the guardianship service.

According to the official data of the Finnish national Institute for health and welfare (National institute for health and welfare), the government organization that keeps statistics on cases of seizure of children in 2016 "granted asylum from domestic violence outside their family" 1826 children and adolescents under the age of 18 years. This is slightly more than the previous year, 2015. Then social services withdrew 1466 children and teenagers. At the same time, in 2016, 658 children under the age of three were selected from their parents, and 388 children between the ages of four and six years.

Statistics indicate, that one in ten families in Finland has in one way or another encountered any action by the guardianship authorities and other social services with regard to their children.

In addition, statistics show, that there has been a continuous increase in the number of children removed from families since 1991. And this applies to both Finnish and Russian parents. Meanwhile, Finland has positioned itself as the best country for childhood and motherhood. Therefore, in theory, the statistics should go down. The removal of the child is intended as an exceptional measure. The main task of the state — to form a young generation that can raise a child on their own, and not take the children to the right and left. And the current situation leads to the fact that many people who moved from Russia to Finland, consciously do not receive local citizenship, which gives a lot of advantages. They fear that then they will lose even consular assistance of the Russian Embassy in the country.

It's really scary, that you can be deprived of a child just, because one person thinks you're mistreating a child. Social worker can see you at the time of quarrel or hysterics of the child, draw their conclusions and then you will not prove to anyone how you love and care for the child. Nobody cares about that.

Thanks for reading!

Image Source:
https://cargolink.ru/ls/blog/4863.html
https://prokopievsk.ru/news/obschestvo/vladimir-putin-podpisal-popravki-v-zakon-ob-opeke-/
https://ne-kurim.ru/forum/threads/statistika-provedenija-stodnevok.37182/

Interview with Johan Backman:
http://ren.tv/novosti/2017-11-12/uchitelya-izdevalis-nad-devochkoy-kotoruyu-izyali-u-rossiyanki-v-finlyandii
https://news.ru/obshestvo/v-finlyandii-novaya-shvatka-za-russkogo-rebenka/