Sweden
faces moral dilemma over migration
What
happens when a country known for its generosity runs out of
resources?
By ALEV SCOTT
12/14/15, 5:30 AM CET
MALMÖ — It takes
only a few minutes to cross the Baltic Sea from Denmark to Sweden by
high-speed train and over the Öresund bridge. At Hyllie station, on
the outskirts of the port of Malmö, Swedish police officers in
fluorescent jackets board the train, glancing at passports: They’re
looking for refugees, particularly for unaccompanied minors. These
recently implemented border checks are politically controversial —
and a sign the world’s most generous host country is finally
starting to feel the strain of its famously welcoming immigration
policy.
The Swedish
Migration Agency’s “buffer” capacity allows for 1,000 refugees
per week, just a tenth of the current rate of entry. In 2015, Sweden
has accepted the largest number of refugees per capita among EU
states. And since September, the country of 10 million received more
than 80,000 refugees. The huge spike in arrivals means the state is
reliant on the help of local municipalities, churches and private
institutions to house the refugees.
At Malmö station,
newly arrived refugee families sit on the ground opposite an oyster
bar, surrounded by overstuffed blue Ikea bags. Some are waiting for
trains to Stockholm; others have been tipped off about less saturated
towns in the north, such as Västerås. Its name sounds like the
mythical setting of Game of Thrones in the conversations of the young
Afghan men scrutinizing the departures board, and just as unfamiliar.
“I’ve
heard it’s harder to get asylum here these days. I’m going to try
Finland — I like the cold!”
Once the new
arrivals are processed at one of the Swedish Migration Agency’s
regional centers, they are promptly given accommodation, language
lessons and an allowance. An asylum application now takes up to four
months to process, as the agency “reallocates resources” to cope
with unprecedented numbers.
Although all Syrian
refugees arriving in Sweden have so far been granted asylum and the
borders are still open, tighter controls have already become a
deterrent to prospective migrants. Sweden’s decision to introduce
new border controls made international news last month when Åsa
Romson, the Green party’s deputy prime minister and environment
minister in the coalition government with the Social Democrats, cried
as she announced the news at a press conference.
Jean, an Armenian
man in his 60s who used to run an underwear factory in Aleppo before
it was closed down by “the Allahu Akhbars,” digs into a Burger
King meal as he waits to start his journey to the Finnish border, a
full 24 hours away.
“I’ve heard it’s
harder to get asylum here these days,” he says. “I’m going to
try Finland — I like the cold!”
* * *
For many Swedes, the
unthinkable has happened: The country has started to say “no” to
people asking for their help. Scaling back the country’s famous
open-door policy has long been considered politically taboo, a
position relegated to the right-wing Sweden Democrats and far-right
organizations. Now it looks increasingly likely to become a reality,
although the government still insists that recent measures signal
inefficient resources rather than a change of heart but rather a
reflection of insufficient resources.
“Sweden has long
taken an unreasonably large responsibility in comparison with other
countries in the EU,” Prime Minister Stefan Löfven said last
month. “Now we are in a very tight position. It is time that other
countries now take responsibility and therefore the government
requests the redistribution of refugees from Sweden.”
In the deafening
silence that followed, the Swedish Migration Agency announced it
could no longer offer accommodation to all asylum-seekers, and
updated its website to warn potential asylum-seekers of a sub-par
welcome.
“We’ve seen a
slight decrease since border checks were introduced but we can’t
say whether this is due to the controls,” said a spokesperson for
the Migration Agency. “It could be due to weather conditions. Our
reception is not the same kind of quality [it] used to be — it
could also be due to that.”
As winter
approaches, the agency relies on local organizations and enterprising
members of the public to help house refugees. St Johannes Kyrka, an
imposing, early 20th-century church in Malmö, opens its doors to
refugees at night, determined to show there is still room for them.
Refugees of all religions sleep in the pews, on the floor, in the
corridors. During the day, while the church is in use, the blankets,
duvets and toys donated by the congregation are folded and stowed
away as tidily as possible. A conference center on the outskirts of
the town, near Hyllie, is even more tightly packed.
Border checks have
done little to appease Sweden’s right-wing minority, which opposed
the previous open-door policy, sometimes violently.
Following a string
of arson attacks on asylum housing, including 10 in the month of
October alone, the migration agency no longer makes public the
addresses of buildings earmarked for asylum-seekers. These kinds of
attacks typically take place in the south, the first point of entry
for most refugees who travel by sea from Germany to Denmark — where
notoriously few people are granted asylum — before crossing over to
Sweden.
According to a
recent report released by Swedish anti-racist foundation Expo,
neo-Nazi activity has increased in the country. At the same time,
pro-immigration Swedes, have pushed back against mainstream
anti-immigration rhetoric, as happened last month when protestors
gathered outside the conference of the right-wing Sweden Democrats in
Lund.
Meanwhile, Malmö’s
Jews have suffered a series of anti-Semitic attacks directed at their
synagogue and are leaving the town in increasing numbers.
Much of the ethnic
tension in Malmö is concentrated in Rosengård, an area largely
composed of refugee housing. Many now fear that such a concentrated
community will discourage Malmö’s refugees from taking steps to
integrate, and effectively cut them off from the rest of the town.
* * *
The spike in refugee
arrivals Sweden witnessed in September was unexpected but can be
chalked up to a combination of factors, including the smuggling
networks taking advantage of the last good weather for sea crossings
over the Mediterranean and Aegean seas. Other factors, like the
Russian air strikes in Syria, which cynics believe also motivated
non-Syrian refugees to “jump on the bandwagon” and bank on open
borders in European host countries compounded the trend. Others
believe in a less calculated social “moment,” like a surge in
stock market trading; a small increase in departures in a particular
community escalates as friends and family are inspired to follow the
lead of others and quickly spread the word.
The deal struck
between EU states and Turkey in Brussels last month, in which Turkey
agreed to keep refugees out of the EU in exchange for €3 billion
and renewed EU membership discussions, may decrease the number of
migrants seeking refuge in Sweden. But as refugees from across the
Middle East and northern Africa use ever more inventive routes to
enter the EU — including by bicycle via the Arctic Circle into
Norway — these political efforts may not make enough of a
difference.
The largest group of
refugees in the country are ethnically Afghan and come to Sweden from
Iran, where many worked as cheap labor. Reports on the migration
agency’s website suggest that Iranian authorities recently started
conscripting young men into Assad’s army; if they refuse, they are
deported back to Afghanistan. Other young men are trying to escape
sexual exploitation in Taliban-controlled areas of Afghanistan, or
persecution due to their Shiite Hazari background, which is often not
tolerated in Sunni-controlled areas.
The unproven and
politically controversial theory of non-Syrians taking advantage of
the civil war to apply for asylum is problematic for Swedish
authorities deciding asylum claims. Arguably, Afghans temporarily in
Turkey or Iran are safe there (and therefore do not need asylum in
the EU) — but, some say, this could also be said of the Syrians.
The greatest strain
on the migration agency’s finances are unaccompanied minors, many
of whom are Afghan boys. If they are under the age of 18 when they
arrive, the Swedish government undertakes to bring over their
families, a practice which has led to a brisk smuggling business,
exporting the “seed” child via Turkey to mainland Europe and on
to Sweden, in an attempt to relocate the whole family. If the Swedish
authorities decide that the child’s family cannot join them, an
immigration worker calls the family to deliver the news, in order to
ease the psychological pressure on the child.
A line of refugees
arriving from Denmark at the Hyllie train station outside Malmö,
Sweden, last month
A line of refugees
arriving from Denmark at the Hyllie train station outside Malmö,
Sweden,
last month
Until recently,
Swedish doctors have been reluctant to give medical opinions in cases
where authorities suspect the boys of being older than they claim.
Now, as authorities try to be more discriminating as they assess
individual cases, they may have to rely more heavily on medical
testimony.
The issue is the
subject of intense discussion in the media; an article in the
newspaper Dagens Nyheter discussed the dangers of relying on X-rays
of wisdom teeth to determine age. Prime Minister Lüfven stepped up
the pressure on Afghanistan to cooperate on the subject of
unaccompanied minors when he met the Afghan President Ashraf Ghani in
early December. Sweden is beginning to resent its double burden as
both an aid donor and a safe haven for tens of thousands of Afghans
every year.
To finance the costs
of processing and housing asylum-seekers, Sweden has had to delve
into its fund for overseas humanitarian aid. So far this year, the
country has used a fifth of the money usually earmarked for reducing
poverty in developing countries.
* * *
Across the road from
Malmö’s migration reception center, children are left to play in
the playground while their parents queue inside, a group of
Palestinians huddle round a small, smoky fire. Behind them are the
signs of an entrenched protest, similar to those outside the Houses
of Parliament in London — a tent and several lopsided banners with
spray-painted political slogans. These men come from the Gaza Strip
and have lived in temporary accommodation in Sweden for nearly seven
years. They still haven’t received asylum.
Unlike Syria, Gaza
is not considered a war zone by the Swedish government, and asylum is
not automatically granted. These men receive $160 a month, which they
say they are grateful for, but does not go far in a country with
notoriously high living expenses.
“We want to work,”
said Mohammad, who has been in Sweden the longest and seemed least
bothered by the cold. “We are still young. Why are Syrians getting
asylum and work and not us?”
Due to the high
number of long-established refugee and immigrant families in Sweden,
it is sometimes hard to tell who is a recently arrived refugee and
who is a second generation immigrant Swede. Bahram, a 47-year-old
Iranian taxi driver, has lived in Sweden since his family fled after
the Iranian revolution in 1979, when he was 10 years old. “Swedish
people are good people,” he says. “They are cold, I still do not
understand them, but they are good people. They are trying to do
their best for the Syrians, but in my opinion they have to stop the
war first.”
* * *
Now Sweden finds
itself caught in a moral dilemma, frustrated at its inability to deal
keep up the inclusive policies for which it is known.
The country’s
history of humanitarian aid and asylum is unparalleled in Europe. In
World War II, it remained neutral and took in almost all of Denmark’s
Jewish population when its neighbor came under German occupation. In
the ’50s and ’60s the country welcomed political refugees from
Hungary and Czechoslovakia, and in the ’70s the country opened its
borders to refugees from around the world. Politicians and citizens
share a sense of duty on the issue, and public debate is often
emotional.
Sweden has been
equally insistent on sticking to its principles on foreign policy.
Earlier this year, Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallström made
international headlines when she criticized Saudi Arabia’s human
rights record, blocked business visas and canceled arms deals, taking
the Western media by surprise.
“The
Swedes are both overwhelmed and angry: They’ve done their
collective best.”
Sweden has been
proud to differentiate itself from its less generous neighbors, who
now express a certain amount of Schadenfreude at Sweden’s
predicament: Denmark’s foreign minister recently remarked that the
best help Denmark could offer Sweden was inspiration from its own
refugee policy.
The polarized debate
between unquestioning acceptance of refugees versus right-wing
xenophobia, with very little ground in between, is starting to break
down as a result of the unprecedented influx. Some Swedes admit,
privately, that a new turn in the conversation was long overdue. Now,
in a situation where Sweden does not have the resources to cope, it
has little choice but to scale back its level of help.
How this will affect
the national psyche remains to be seen; the current border checks and
restrictions on housing are — so far — only temporary, but some
fear the start of a switch in policy, the dawn of a new, less
tolerant era.
The Swedes are both
overwhelmed and angry: They’ve done their collective best, which
cannot be said of other EU countries. According to a diplomatic
source in Stockholm, Sweden feels that — with the exception of
Germany — it has been left to shoulder the refugee burden alone.
“Imagine
Halloween: Sweden is the only house in the street that has a lighted
pumpkin outside — the rest of the street is dark. So all the kids
come to that house for trick or treat, and the people in that house
don’t want to turn the kids away but they’re running out of
chocolates.
“That’s Sweden’s
predicament. They’re angry that the other houses in the street are
not engaging. But they’re still giving out the chocolates as long
as they can.”
Alev Scott is the
author of the book “Turkish Awakening” (Faber & Faber, 2014)
and a freelance writer based in Istanbul. Follow her on Twitter
@AlevScott.
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