Swedish homes are safe spaces for abused children

FAMILY therapist Lotta Molander-Shanti has been exposed to many things in her life. And pain is one of them.

For the past 15 years, Molander-Shanti has been a big part of helping parents and children talk about their feelings at the largest and oldest women’s shelter in Stockholm, Sweden, Alla Kvinnors Hus (All Women’s House).

“A lot of the time, people come to Sweden thinking it’s all about equality, but domestic violence is one of the biggest problems we have. Sexual, physical, psychological – it affects all kinds of classes. It is a very democratic disease.”

The shelter was formed in 1979, the same year the Swedish ban on corporal punishment came into law.

Recently, a kindergarten was introduced at the All Women’s House to allow for women to live with their children. There are 15 rooms available in the house and five apartments outside.

“This is not only a women’s problem, but rather a problem of the entire society,” said Molander-Shanti.

She said it was important for the system to realise that children had fathers who, even though perpetrators, were still family. So it was the entire family dynamic that had to be worked on.

Because children were so receptive, parents needed to be open with them and treat them like normal human beings.

Molander-Shanti said exercising children’s feelings was the best way to understand what they were going through.

“Kids have a great deal of knowledge on feelings. We use colours and use the body for them to describe how they are feeling. They identify the feeling and place it on the part of their body where they feel it belongs,” she said.

She said a problem in Sweden was that people did not like to embrace sadness and that people judged each other a lot, leading to a fear of sharing heavy feelings.

On the other side of town there is a place that is a safe haven for abused children.

It’s a useful example for South Africa, with this country’s annual 16 Days of Activism for No Violence Against Women and Children campaign about to begin, as centres such as this help address the many problems faced by abused children.

Barnahus (House of the Child) is a child-friendly centre where social workers, police officers and other authorities work under one roof.

“Barnahus is an environment where children can be comforted without feeling like they have to tell their story over again. They tell it once and we deal with it from there,” said co-ordinator Olricah Rehls.

Before Barnahus, there were three different offices that had to deal with abused children. As the biggest child centre, it attends to about 2 500 cases a year covering a population of 1.2 million people in Stockholm.

The centre focuses on four main aspects – child protection services, police, prosecution, and medical and mental health. Staff members include five social workers, 50 police officers including 42 investigators, two child psychologists, a trauma counsellor, a doctor, three specialist nurses and three prosecuting officers.

Working together means ensuring the child’s needs and best interests are met.

Some lessons to be learnt for South Africa