Shocking

If 1000 children had been missing for 21 years without anyone knowing what happened to them, there would have been a real crisis in government offices.

But when it comes to asylum-seeking children, the justice minister won’t even carry out an investigation. It’s incomprehensible.

Last fall, NRK revealed that 432 children who came to Norway alone to seek asylum have disappeared from Norwegian reception and treatment centers since 2015.

There are so many children that could have filled a medium sized Norwegian school.

Charges on electricity prices

The most shocking thing, are the revelations that the police largely do not appear to be actively searching for these children.

It took two months for 16-year-old Agathe to be reported missing, and a boy who was only nine when he went missing, still no one knows what happened to him.

This is why the MDG and most other parts of the Storting have taken the stand for an investigation. Even the Progress Party. Only the Conservative Party and the government parties oppose it.

Is Erna scared? to be seen in the papers about what was happening under his responsibility?

I was hoping that a new government would help investigate what happened. But the Justice Minister disappointed, both in the Storting and more recently in a debate on Dagsnytt 18.

How embarrassing it would never have been accepted if it concerned Norwegian children.

Passive for missing children

Nothing the Justice Minister has said so far in Parliament or in the media has reassured me. He says the preliminary conclusion of the police themselves is that they followed the practice.

A practice that has allowed the disappearance of a thousand children since 2001 without anyone knowing what happened to them is not a practice that the Minister of Justice can guarantee.

That statement by the Justice Minister is also completely contrary to NRK’s ​​revelations, which showed that the police are not looking for asylum-seeking missing children on the same level as Norwegian nationals, despite the fact that the Storting decided they should as early as 2015.

Moreover, last year the UN commissioner for human rights criticized Norway for not looking for missing children and for not investigating the reasons for the disappearances well enough.

Norway’s official response to the UN is that the police do not look for asylum-seeking children because they assume they voluntarily disappear.

So the police assume they don’t know. Assumptions are very dangerous for these very vulnerable children.

The Directorate of Immigration and the police themselves have stated on other occasions that these children are particularly vulnerable to human trafficking and other crimes.

And what exactly is the volunteer? Children who come to Norway alone bring terrible experiences and trauma from growing up with acts of war, abuse and conflict, and have gone through a life threatening journey across the Mediterranean and Europe.

The school must adapt to artificial intelligence

They have a very limited network in Norway and reception areas. Many come to Norway with debts to scammers.

Life in reception centers is itself a reason why children feel they have to start fleeing again. Several Norwegian organizations such as Save the Children and NOAS have documented the offer to asylum-seeking children in Norway only.

It’s scary reading. Children are characterized by apathy. Self-harm and suicide attempts are not uncommon.

Children often don’t get enough food, have little money, don’t have access to an interpreter, mental health care, or information about their application.

These are traumatized children who seek protection in Norway without their parents or other guardians.

The Norwegian Institute for Human Rights has labeled Norway’s treatment of asylum-seeking children as one of the most explicit and clear human rights violations in Norway.

Do we forget the newborn?

The Minister of Justice says so he does not want to launch an investigation and prefers more immediate measures, without specifying what they should be.

Instead, he spends his time trying to get out of Norway’s obligations to respect children’s rights, repeated criticism of the United Nations and the obvious need to put all the cards on the table.

I will continue to ask the Minister of Justice to investigate cases of disappearances. It’s the only right thing.

It’s the least we would have done if it were Norwegian children who systematically disappeared year after year.

I hope that Justice Minister Mehl also realizes this.