Only in Denmark

URL: http://www.metroxpress.dk/nyheder/voldelig-far-far-fuld-forldremyndighed/KObkkb!ubUQlFxkuDziw/

An American woman with work permit is fighting to not to let her daughters live with their father because he is abusive both to her and the children. The city court has given him full custody instead.

The seven year old girl said in the video recorded by the police on how she had more headaches than normal and that she wanted to throw up. According to the report from the ER, she had concussion. The girl said that the father hit her in the head. With a book. The father explained that the girl was running into the father’s outstretched hand.

According to the girl, the black eye was the cause of her brushing her teeth to slow and the little sister said that the father stepped on her toes and pinched her when she was too slow to get ready in the morning.

She also said that she was in the bathtub with the father and should play with his penis.

The parents, the American mother and the Danish father, separated from each other in spring 2010 after she could no longer endure years of verbal and physical violence. She met him in the States and they had children together when she could work here. They had lived together for four years in Denmark.

After leaving him, she lived at the crisis center for a couple of months before she found a place in the same town where her ex lives.

Divorce and custody trial were set in course. In the beginning, the statsforvaltning decided that the girls should stay with the mother until the final decision.

During interview with the children – supervised by social service officer – both children expressed that they would rather stay with their mother and that they were scared when they were at their father’s place, just like they explained that they were abused physically whenever they were at their father’s

The father wants full custody for the children and on October 13, the judge in the city court fulfilled his wish. The tape from the police interrogation with the children were not used in the trial.

According to the decision, it says that the father could give more stability for the children although he is too much fixated on rules.

Not long after the court has decided to give full custody to the children, he disappeared with the children for more than a week although the case was appealed to a higher court and according to the Statsforvaltning, the daughters should stay with the mother again during the process.

The daughters are now going to a privat school and stay at their mother’s. They stay with their father five days in every 9th day. The mother agrees to the joint custody as long as the father could control his temper when he’s with the children.

The mother has work permit until 2014 and has no plan to leave the country. The appeal case will start in the spring, according to the plan.

URL: http://www.metroxpress.dk/nyheder/brn-i-hobetal-ngtes-familiesammenfring/KObkfB!C4PJ6NiGjGZ/

Children under 15 year old are denied family reunification with their parents residing in Denmark because Immigration service asseses that these children could not be “succesfully integrated”. The refusals are unobjective says integration experts. SF demands an explanation from Integration Minister Søren Pind (V)

The case of 12-year old Sirapat who was denied family reunification with his Thailand mother residing iN Denmark caused a stir among the politicians last March this year. A case that MetroXpress is following since Sirapat said goodbye to his family at the Copenhagen airport.

The reason was – according to the Immigration Service – Sirapat did not have the chance to be “successfully integrated”.

As MetroXpress has earlier reported, Venstre’s Eyvind Vesselbo is into the case, just like EU-parliament member Jens Rohde (V) was agitated by the case that he asked the EU comission to assess whether Denmark lives up to its international obligations in the case.

Now it seems that Sirapat’s case was not the only one. Children under 12 and 15 years are denied family reunification with one or both parents in Denmark because they couldn’t be “successfully integrated”

35 rejections with this reason were made by the Immigration service in 2005 for children under 12 years old and that corresponds to a rejection for every 5th application. In 2010, the number increases to 96 and this corresponds to half of the applicants were rejected due to the same reason. The same pattern is visible for children under 15 years old. This comes from a statement from the Immigration Service Søren Pind (V) about the Sirapat case.

Katrine Vitus, expert in integration of children in Denmark and sociologist at the National Research Center for Welfare (SFI), thinks that it’s unobjective that Immigration Service refuses to give family reunification for children under 12 years to a parent living here in Denmark under the reason that the child doesn’t have the chance to be “successfully integrated”

»One can’t assess whether a child at 12 year old can be integrated. I have difficulty to see whether these can be judges from objective criterias,« she said and added:

»I see it more like it’s more political step to be restrictive on the number of people one wants to welcome in the country. This is the reason why someone found the name “not integrateable”

12-year old Sirapat Kamminsen had to say goodbye to his mother, stepfather and his younger brother at Copenhagen Airport

It is almost as if the 12-year old Sirapat and his mother Amporn Kamminsen formed a shield over the younger brother Nicklas in the embrace. The 3-year old boy was the only one who had no clue that Sirapat would have to go back to Thailand.

Sirapat’s stepfather Svend Viborg was standing next to him, with fingers pressed on his nose to fight back his tears.

The family received the news last Thursday where Sirapat was told that he could not obtain residence permit and had to leave Denmark. The reason for the rejection was because Sirapat did not have the possibility to achieve a “connection to Denmark that is essential to a successful integration”.

Now the family was standing at Copenhagen Airport and Sirapat’s ferrari-looking model suitcase was packed. He got the suitcase from one of his friends from Vesterbro Ny Skole where he went to school since October in the so-called “reception class”.

He was also equipped with a few thousand kroner that he should give to Amporn’s cousin whom he would stay with.

The rejection
The immigration office stressed in their decision that Sirapat’s mom, who is married to Svend applied for family reunification two years after she got residence permit in Denmark herself. Furthermore, the Immigration office knew that Sirapat’s father is in Thailand.

The fact that Sirapat did not live with his biological father but lived with his grandfather (from his mother’s side) before Amporn and Svend invited Sirapat to Denmark on tourist visa in Septemer was not take into consideration.

’The decision is based that, (…) he, apart from his grandfather has another family member in Thailand, which is his father. He lived with his grandfather that had no connection to the Danish society apart from the family relationship with yourself (Amporn, red.) has no connection whatsoever to the country’, the rejection letter reads.

Correct decision
Advocate Gunnar Homann – who is specialized in immigration law and have read the decision from the Immigration Office – said that the case was properly handled and the decision was taken correctly according to Danish law.

»The decision is by the book. The decision is in harmony with the law that points out if someone waits with their children’s family reunification but has instead accepted that the child is remaining at his / her original country, then it is seen as the child would not be able to integrate easily because the child has been exposed to the culture of his / her original country«

The Question
Sirapat’s stepfather and people around the family have been wondering why nobody thinks that a 12 year old boy cannot be integrated?

»How do you judge a case like that? Nobody has talked to me or his mother, nobody has talked to Sirapat or his teacher at school,« Svend said.

Sirapat’s school teacher, Bo Sørensen, at Vesterbro Ny Skole cannot understand either why Sirapat cannot be integrated.

»I am furious. My opinion is the other way around. He has shown progress. He is learning Danish as second language,« Bo Sørensen said.

Fixed criteria

When a case like Sirapat’s is processed, opinion on the case is important. However, the case is primarily decided by en series of fast criteria: Age, the period where the applicant has lived in his / her country of origin, education level, language and whether there’s a parent in the home country.

Gunnar Homann explains:

»One makes judgement from the criteria. It’s very systematic. If you appeal on this case and if the ministry cancelled the decision and came with another not-so-horrible decision, so would the higher court accept the decision too.«

Fair or not
The question revolves around whether the system could guarantee that children – who have possibilities of being integrated successfully in the Danish society can actually be integrated. There’s a split in opinion about the subject.

If you ask Marriage Without Border, the answer according to the vice chairman Lars Kyhnau is a no

If you ask Liberal (V)’s integrationspokesman Karsten Lauritzen, he said that the system would ensure that all case are processed uniformly in family reunification cases.

»A statement from a teacher or a school inspector is of course important but it would still be difficult to decide because there is no clear standard on the content. People want to be treated equally, it is the reason why we have measurable, objective criteria. People can always discuss whether it should be different but the criteria is set to ensure that everyone is treated equally« Karsten Lauritzen said.

He points out that there is possibility to put statement from teacher in the application

»Therefore one can’t say that statement from teachers or pedagogs doesn’t have any effect in the decision making, but one has set fixed criteria such as age, education level and language because there’s need for objective criteria that are measurable.«

Goodbye
Nobody doubts that it is possible in theory that a 12 year old boy from a country like Thailand can be well integrated in Denmark. However, the 12-year old would not be Sirapat. He went alone through the Fast Track gate, that is reserved for business people  and accompanied children. The adults have agreed that they would not cry. For Sirapat’s sake, but it did not work.