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GOTHENBURG. Thousands of undocumented people have already fled Sweden.
Maryam, 20, came here to escape a forced marriage.
Now she has to break up again.
– Sweden is a good country for everyone except me, she says.
Imagine that you are a fifteen-year-old girl in a country plagued by war and famine. Your mother is unable to support both you and your siblings.
It is decided that you will be married off to a relative, three times your age.
You think: I’d rather die.
Late at night you are woken up by a strange woman. She says your mother sent her to help you.
You escape in her car. Hear a shot go off.
They stick you with your passport and ticket. You are led aboard an airplane. Landing at a huge airport, continuing to another, smaller one.
Suddenly you are standing at a train station in a strange city, alone, in only the clothes you are wearing.
– Good luck, says the woman and disappears.
Two white sneakers scrape against the table leg. Maryam’s voice is low, but clear.
She is the girl in the story. Gothenburg, which is the new city.
She is sitting indoors with her jacket on. After three rejections and two years of being undocumented, her options are rapidly shrinking.
– Soon I will have to run away again, she says.
Migration Agency: Gaps in the story
The Swedish Migration Agency saw gaps in her brief story. Details, which could not be verified and which led to rejection.
– There is a lot I didn’t understand myself. I was just a child then, says Maryam.
The eyes are wrinkled.
– But I get angry when they say I’m lying. They know nothing about how my country works. Absolutely nothing…
Deporting people to Somalia is difficult. Swedish border police and correctional officers have been forced to escort returnees down to passport control at Mogadishu airport, where they tried to negotiate them into the country. It has happened that you have failed and had to turn back with the person who is to be deported.
At the same time: last year Sweden gave almost SEK 800 million to the country in aid, a significant part of which goes to the state apparatus. Now the government wants to use that money as a means of pressure to get the country to accept its citizens.
Maryam is in her last year of high school, has friends she likes and really likes her life. The nursing home where she practices has offered her a job, but she knows she can’t accept.
– As an undocumented person, I am not allowed to work. Sweden is a good country for everyone else, but for me there is no future here.
Matilda Brinck-Larsen, who runs the voluntary organization Agape, gives unaccompanied and deported Maryam a long hug.
After three rejections and two years as an undocumented person, Maryam intends to flee further through Europe.
Where will she go?
Maybe to Ireland. A Somali girl friend in Gothenburg who was also undocumented went there last year. Or to Canada, where another girl went.
But how will it be done? She lacks both money and passport.
Maybe she first needs to get to a closer country, like Germany or France, where you can travel by land and bypass the border controls.
She would be far from the first. A large number of unaccompanied minors have fled Sweden to other EU countries in recent years. No one knows exactly how many, but according to information from the Stöttepelaren association, it is about five thousand Afghans alone since 2019.
May stay in Germany and France
Some become Dublin cases and are deported back to Sweden. But many have managed to stay and get residence permits, even though Germany and France must follow exactly the same international conventions as Sweden.
During the winter and spring, refugee activists in Sweden witnessed a new wave, driven by the more restrictive policy and renewed rejections.
– The hope of being allowed to stay is dying and many people think it’s over. I am contacted every day by someone who wants to go to Europe, says helper Eva Hållsten.
Concerns after the Tidö Agreement
Lawyer Emilie Hillert talks about a growing concern for what the Tidö agreement will mean.
– As a lawyer, I have no answers to give. I notice that many are thinking about whether they will be able to continue and whether Sweden is the right country.
Matilda Brinck-Larsen runs the voluntary organization Agape. She has worked with asylum seekers for ten years and experienced the goodwill in 2015, when she had to turn away Gothenburgers outside accommodation who wanted to help the unaccompanied visitors with everything from food and clothes to tickets to football matches at Nya Ullevi.
Now the conversations revolve around the residents’ lousy choices. Is it worth staying hidden for four years to reapply and get rejected again? Can you return? Or must you try to escape further?
The number of asylum seekers in the EU last year was the highest since the refugee crisis, while at the same time the percentage of people seeking Sweden continues to fall.
Matilda Brinck-Larsen states that Agape has helped at least two hundred unaccompanied minors to leave Sweden.
– We do it for the people, because I see how self-destructive it is to live in constant uncertainty and never get to start your life. I am worried about what will happen otherwise, if people are pushed further and further into the shadows and mental illness escalates.
Maryam is in contact with her mother via Whatsapp. She thinks her daughter should stay in Sweden because she has a roof over her head and food on the table.
The mother asks over Whatsapp:
– Is someone hitting you? Missing food to eat? A bed to sleep in?
Maryam denies.
– Then you must stay.
Maryam sighs. Wondering how she will be able to explain so that the mother understands. The conversation ends, without the most important thing being said.
– Bye. Hope to see you one day…
Who was the woman who took Maryam to Sweden five years ago? How could the mother afford to pay for the flight to Sweden?
Five years have passed and it may not be possible to clarify all the details. What we do know is this: Maryam came here as an unaccompanied minor for a better life. A life where she herself could choose her future, who she wanted to marry.
“Must try to get out of here”
She wraps her arms around herself. Returning to the core, the one that makes the worry grow inside.
– I’m going a little crazy. But I have to try to get out of here. I am strong and young and want to live.
She looks out through the curtain. A faint murmur finds its way in from the street. It comes from all the others out there.
The ones who always seem to be going somewhere, even though they don’t have to.
Who can never imagine what it’s like to have to run away, first once and then once more.
Footnote: Maryam is called something else.