Sylvi Listhaug (Frp) has called six ministers in for an urgent meeting Thursday, after reports from those who have been to sent to a Koran school in Somalia, telling them about maltreatment.
Minister of Immigration and Integration tells NRK that she and Minister of Health, Bent Høie, Minister of Knowledge Henrik Asheim, Minister of Culture Linda Hofstad Helleland, Labor and Social Affairs Minister Anniken Hauglie and Minister for Children and Equal Opportunities Solveig Horne will meet to discuss issues where children are being sent to Koran schools abroad.
“We will see if we have good enough rules and regulations, and work better to follow up these cases where children are being sent out of Norway,” says Listhaug.
The minister has called for the urgent meeting after four Norwegian youths have reported about their cruel experiences at a Koran school in Somalia.
Two of them stood before NRK in a report Wednesday. They both told of similar stories, that they were tricked in to going to Somalia by relatives, and then they were left at a Koran school, they claim use cruel physical punishment methods.
One of them, “Noor”, says that when she got to the school, the director attached and linked chains around her ankles. The other, “Omar”, told of a similar story when he started at a school in Bosaso.
“Four men came in and began to circle around. They held large wooden bats, as long as from the waist to the floor. They hit me. I fell unconscious,” says Omar.
After this report NRK knows of at least ten Norwegian children and adolescents that have been sent to the same two Koran schools in the last two years..
Listhaug says that as of today, there are laws in place in both the Penal Code and the Children’s Act that can penalize those who send children to schools that mistreat students, but she will look deeper into the legislation, now.
© NTB Scanpix / Norway Today
