Sweden’s youth in state centres sell sex for drugs: report

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Nyamko Sabuni
Sweden's Equality Minister Nyamko Sabuni
Nyamko Sabuni
Sweden's Equality Minister Nyamko Sabuni

TWELVE percent of girls and four percent of boys placed in youth care homes in Sweden sold sex for drugs or money last year, according to a new report.

This report published by the National Board of Institutional Care (Statens institutionsstyrelse – SIS) in Sweden is based on interviews with 567 young people.

A number of high-profile rape and prostitution cases have involved young girls who had been placed in youth care homes.

A Swede newspaper reported of a 14-year-old mentally handicapped girl who fled from a youth care facility. She had been told by other girls at the home where she could go to attempt to sell sex.

Last year, former police commissioner Göran Lindberg was convicted of several cases of rape and prostitution, one of which involved a 17-year-old girl who had been placed in a youth care facility.

Equality Minister Nyamko Sabuni found the study’s results troubling.

“The state has to take more responsibility. Not only in providing care, but also support for improving cooperation and coordination so that young people can be removed from these unbelievable awful situations as quickly as possible,” Sabuni told a newspaper.

Around 20,000 young people in Sweden are taken out of their homes every year by social services, either due to family problems or because of their own behavioral problems, including criminal activity and addiction. Some youth also seek care voluntarily after having run away from home, the report said.

Roughly 1,000 of these young people, who are generally between 12 and 21-years-old, end up placed with a facility run by the National Board of Institutional Care.

At these centers, young people can stay for a few weeks to two years.

According to the responses, 15 percent of adult female addicts and 4 percent of adult male addicts under the state’s care have sold sex for drugs or money.

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