Facts: The state’s youth home
The State Board of Institutions (Sis), is a state authority responsible for individually adapted compulsory care.
Sis treats young people with serious psychosocial problems and adults with substance abuse problems. Sis also accepts young people who have been sentenced to closed youth care.
The authority has 21 special youth homes with 730 places and eleven LVM homes with 359 places for the care of adult addicts. The institutions are located all over the country.
Sis has around 4,000 permanent employees.
Source: The Norwegian Institute Board
The children’s rights organizations World Childhood Foundation (Childhood) and the Children’s Rights Agency have mapped reports about and the occurrence of sexual abuse and violence at the state’s youth homes run by the State Institutions Board (Sis), which receive children and young people up to the age of 21 who are judged to have extensive psychosocial problems or who are convicted of serious crimes.
The report shows extensive and constantly recurring reports and notifications of molestation and sexual violations, especially of male employees who expose girls to sexual contact.
— There is a small number of young people who are placed each year, around 1,000, which roughly corresponds to an average school. There, on average, there are five reports of sexual violations or abuse per month, with one conviction against one of the staff per year. An average school would not have been allowed to continue operating in that way, year after year, says Joel Borgström at Childhood.
Sexual touch
Childhood and the Children’s Rights Agency base their report on a study by the researcher Maria Andersson Vogel, who has nailed official documents and judgments from the time period January 2019–May 2022. The report counts 209 reported incidents, notifications or complaints at 20 out of 21 youth homes during the period, and also states that five former employees have been convicted of rape of young people at Sis home during 2017–2022.
— The most common violation is various types of molestation such as sexualized touching. We also see everything from sexualized language and jargon to a perceived threatening and offensive environment, but also significantly more serious abuse that goes all the way to complete rape, says Joel Borgström, who emphasizes that there is often a large number of young people who never report their perpetrators .
Violations against young people in state youth homes can be reported by the young people themselves, but also by relatives or by the home’s staff.
Male employees
In just over a fifth of the documents released, the youth’s gender has been crossed out to protect the identity, in the remaining cases and reports, girls account for more than three quarters of those who have been victimized. The perpetrator is in the majority of cases a male employee, in only nine of the cases it is another young person.
— Almost all girls who are placed at Sis have previous experiences of sexual violations or abuse. When they are then placed, they end up in a situation where they are again at risk of being exposed to quite extensive violence and sexual abuse. For many of the young people it is about, it becomes proof that they are not worth anything, and this of course leaves deep traces that work against healing much later in life, says Borgström.
Cultures of silence
Youth homes are obliged to report serious malpractice, or if there was a risk of serious malpractice, to the Inspectorate for Care and Care (Ivo) according to lex Sarah. But only nine of 29 lex Sarah reports made internally have been forwarded to Ivo through formal lex Sarah reports, according to the report.
— The children we interviewed express that they feel very powerless because no one listens to them, and that situations often arise where words stand against words, where people do not believe them and where cultures of silence develop where staff protect each other and where the institution’s reputation comes before children’s interests, says Borgström.
– Our conclusion is that there are far too many children who are harmed in the youth homes, that it has been going on for far too long and that you basically need to re-examine the entire forced care system.