Several of the deaths in which children have been killed by a parent have attracted attention and have had a major impact in the media. Two have been the basis for law changes, Lex Bobby and Lex Lilla Hjärtat.
Despite this, children continue to be killed by parents.
Journalist Leone Milton has examined several cases where children have been killed by their parents. When she began her review, she could not understand the extent of the problem.
– I thought about how the parents must feel. What a betrayal! It is society, authorities and courts that have failed these children. That it happens all the time every year, as many children.
Milton has seen several common denominators in the cases she has reviewed and believes that violence against children does not come “like a bolt from the blue”
– These children have been in the consciousness of the social services. You know that they have a tough situation at home, and yet you don’t do enough. Another common denominator for many is that they have found themselves in custody disputes, where the other parent uses the child as a form of revenge and kills the child.
She compares the help from social services to a lottery.
– You can be lucky and get an experienced trained caseworker, but you can be unlucky and get an inexperienced one who is not used to handling extremely difficult cases like this. In the case of Isolde, the man said he was going to kill her. Then you have to intervene.
Requires competence and resources
Linn Moser Hällen has previously worked as a social secretary and wants to point out that social services often work well. But based on her experiences, social services also have challenges both from a competence and resource perspective.
– I think a big challenge is competence. To have knowledge about these issues. It is complex, difficult assessments, it does not always look as you think. More competence is needed around violence, violence against children and risk factors.
She continues:
– Conditions are also required to use the skills. There you can see that social services in many municipalities are in crisis. To discover violence, you have to have time. You have to meet the child many times. That time does not always exist.
“The real Lex Little Heart”
Minister of Social Security Camilla Waltersson Grönvall (M) says that she is disappointed when she hears what Leone Milton has come to in his review. In order to prevent this from continuing to happen in Sweden, the government has worked on a series of legislative proposals to put an end to it.
– A number of laws need to be tightened. We want to make children bearers of their own rights. The best interests of children must come before the best interests and rights of adults.
Waltersson Grönvall calls the change “the real Lex Lilla heart”.
– The one that is in place today has obvious flaws and has received a lot of criticism for it. During the winter/spring it will be written.
She also wants to prevent the parent who exposes their child to violence from having the right to spend time with the child. A new law is planned to enter into force already before the turn of the year.
– Now we put an end to it.