“Undocumented children should be allowed to attend pre-school” – Swedish Radio

The Red Cross and the Stockholm City Mission want to undocumented children should have the legal right to attend pre-school in Sweden. Today, many children live in isolation while their parents are working.

– The City Mission’s activities, more and more children living undocumented in Sweden and children living under very great vulnerability, even compared with other families we meet, says Marika Markovits, director of the City Mission in Stockholm.

This group of children often live isolated with their parents. They live crowded and often move. They call them undocumented. In total there could be between 2 000 and 3 000 children living illegally in Sweden.

This group of children has since 2013 the right to go to school and partly also have access to medical care. But now the Red Cross and Stockholm City the right to pre-school should also apply to this group of children.

You can see that many children mistreated. The children stay in their development and when left alone when parents work at risk children being exploited and subjected to crime.

City Mission in Stockholm, I meet a two-year girl and her mother. What distinguishes the girl is that she has no real language.

But judging by the girl herself , she has still much to tell. She was waving to me that I should come and watch. She goes over to the City Mission, however, stove, open the cooker oven door and shovels into a whole stack of deep dishes in the oven before she slams the door. She looks very satisfied and happy.

Ulrika Årehed Kågström, general secretary of the Swedish Red Cross, look to the language development of this group of children will suffer.

– We have parents who have described the difference it has become when children actually had access to preschool. How it affects their development positively.

– To even be able to get one cooked meal at midday and maybe a snack so that they have better opportunities in the future, says Ulrika Årehed Kågström.

The great pleasure of getting to play characterize the small undocumented children when they come to the City Mission, says Marika Markovits, director of the City Mission in Stockholm.

– Compared with other children is that they never want to go from here. To be here in these rooms that are especially made for children. There is plenty of space to play, painting and drawing. These toys, they are not accustomed to, she says.

Mary Repitsch
maria.repitsch@sverigesradio.se