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Parents who allow children to be subjected to violence abroad should be investigated

Police at workPolice at work.Photo: Gorm Kallestad / NTB scanpix

The findings about Norwegian children exposed to violence in Quranic schools in Somalia have caused reactions. Researcher, Anja Bredal, believes the parents should be investigated.

 

She told NRK news that there is a lack of case law for such incidents in Norway, but it is time for them to be tried in court.

Bredal, who works at the Norwegian Institute for Growth, Welfare and Ageing (NOVA), has researched what is being done to children who are sent abroad against their will.

She considers the stories of a Quranic school in Somalia as a ‘particularly illustrative example’ of practices she believes should be investigated by police.

If the parents have knowingly exposed their children to this, it is punishable. If they only later learned about what the children were exposed to, they should have prevented it’, she said.

On Wednesday, two Norwegian-Somali youths told about life inside a Quran school in Somalia. The youths were beaten, locked up, and abused. The stories they told caused immigration minister, Sylvi Listhaug of Fremskrittsparti (Frp), to call several ministers together for an emergency meeting.

Attorney General, Saqib Rizwan, has worked on several issues concerning child welfare and immigration cases. He believes it isn’t unlawful to send children to a school abroad.

‘But if parents deliberately send the children to a place where they are aware that the children will be exposed to violence, it should be investigated,’ he said.

He believes such cases could be investigated under the law involving bodily injury, or provisions under helpless conditions, if parents fail to retrieve children after they become aware of the situation.

©  NTB Scanpix / Norway Today