(cont. from § 19) Integration (cont. AU6)
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
S considers that the Settlement Act should be abolished as it allows certain municipalities to escape responsibility for the reception of refugees 1 2. L argues that the law should be reviewed as the responsibility has not been distributed evenly 3 4 and sees clan structures as problematic when they limit the individual's free choice 5 6. MP considers clan structures to be undemocratic 7 8, criticizes the government's integration policy as dehumanizing 9 and argues that the school's problems are due to the market school 10. MP also considers that KD implements SD's policy by worsening welfare for persons with a foreign background 11. KD argues that one must acknowledge that integration has failed 12 and that the points of the Tidö Agreement must comply with European and international law 12.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Speakers (14)
Sofia Amloh (S)
Mr. Speaker! I intended to be brief and ask the member about the Settlement Act.
The Settlement Act should be torn up so that certain municipalities can escape their share of the collective responsibility for refugee reception. What does the member think about that? Is it right?
Camilla Mårtensen (L)
Mr. Speaker! My understanding is that it states in the Tidö Agreement that the law should be evaluated and investigated. Personally, I can see a benefit in distributing the responsibility evenly across the municipalities. But it has not worked out in the municipalities. The allocation has been made based on strange parameters. I believe that the law needs to be reviewed, and I am not sure that what you claim is stated in the Tidö Agreement.
Sofia Amloh (S)
Mr. Speaker! It states in the Tidö Agreement that the law shall be amended, or in the second instance, abolished. It is clear that the government parties, together with the Sweden Democrats, do not want the Settlement Act.
The Settlement Act was introduced in March 2016. The law meant that all municipalities became obliged, upon instructions from the Swedish Migration Agency, to receive and arrange housing for newly arrived people - in order for them to further establish themselves in the labor market and in society.
The law was introduced because the situation was actually not resolved in any other way. Wealthy, bourgeois municipalities consistently said no, while other municipalities had to take the entire responsibility. These are not the basic prerequisites for good integration.
The Swedish National Audit Office conducted a review in 2021. It showed that the reform has had good results, while the member points out that it does not work. When the law was introduced in 2016, the Liberals were for it. What has changed? Why are the Liberals not for the law today?
Camilla Mårtensen (L)
Mr. Speaker! I speak from my experience as a municipal politician. I am one of the members of the municipal council that you refer to, that is to say, wealthy, bourgeois municipalities that do not take their responsibility.
Then I want to point out that my municipality took its responsibility, just as the vast majority of other municipalities did. My position has not changed, rather these are ongoing discussions.
In the best of worlds, we would need no settlement law. But it has shown historically that we needed to introduce it in 2016, and I thought then that it was the right decision. I also think it is a good decision to review in the future what has worked and what has not worked.
Leila Ali Elmi (MP)
Mr. Speaker! I do not remember exactly in what context the member brought up the term clan. Clan crime has become a word that is used a lot in Swedish debate, and I intended to ask questions about this.
What is a clan? My perception is that a clan is a social group. It is an old form of society that has existed in all places in the world, in all the different cultures that exist. It is a patriarchal structure. Clan society is strong in the culture I come from.
I belong to a clan, that is to say, I was born into a clan. I share clan membership with David Bowie's wife, with Canada's Minister of Migration - I am mentioning famous people so that you will understand - and with Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. These are people I have never met. I do not know who they are other than that I have seen them in the media like everyone else. So what is it that constitutes a clan?
Then my question is whether it is kinship-based. If we start from that definition, is the Bernadotte family a clan? Is the Wallenberg family of 168 people a clan?
Camilla Mårtensen (L)
Mr. Speaker! I thank you for the question. I believe I mentioned the word clan structure in connection with my mention of problems in areas of exclusion.
As I view a clan structure, I think of it as a union that can be based on origin, on geographical heritage, or on other compositions. Sometimes, or in the vast majority of cases, my view is that these clan structures are very positive and that they function. But when a clan structure creates limitations for the individual, when the will of the family, the clan, the area, or the lineage holds greater power than the individual's own—that is what I am referring to. That is when I think it is a problem.
Leila Ali Elmi (MP)
Mr. Speaker! I do not share that view. The clan structure is absolutely not positive, not in the slightest. It is a patriarchal structure. It is an undemocratic structure.
But where are these criminal clans? Who are they? What constitutes a criminal clan group? We are talking all the time about clan criminals. Who are they? Who are included, and who are not included? Where are the boundary lines there? Are they people from a certain place in Syria who belong to a specific clan?
It is this that I am curious about – that one uses a concept that actually stigmatizes large groups without reflecting at all on what the concept means and what it contains.
I would like to know, Camilla, which clans you are aware of.
Camilla Mårtensen (L)
Mr. Speaker! I certainly do not know as many clans as the member does. I am referring to the negative structures that we have described, where family and patriarchy rule over the free choices of both young and older people. It was those I referred to in my speech.
Leila Ali Elmi (MP)
Mr. Speaker! Is it integration we are debating here today? Is it integration policy we are talking about in Sweden?
The integration debate has spun so out of control that it is no longer about integration at all. The integration debate has long been an obstacle to integration itself. It takes its starting point in suspecting immigrants at all costs. It is built on a big lie that Sweden is too kind, that we have a benefit system that is too generous and leads to passivity but also attracts people here, that people who have fled from Syria and Somalia are actually not real refugees who have fled war but economic refugees who have hidden intentions to introduce sharia laws in Sweden and that they are actually here to erode our generous welfare system. That is how the debate on integration has looked in Sweden in recent years.
Mr. Speaker! I am thinking of the many young girls I have met in my profession as an interpreter - those who had made their way to North Africa, then to Turkey and across the Mediterranean to get all the way here to Sweden, who were mentally exhausted after violence, rape and prostitution but despite that were hopeful about being able to create a good life for themselves. They are the ones who are considered suspicious people, suspicious migrants, economic migrants with other motives for being here in Sweden than being asylum seekers by the Tidö parties and the right-wing parties.
It is a long and risky journey to flee. It is not something one does just to end up in exclusion and obtain financial assistance. None of those I met had any plans whatsoever to sit at home and collect benefits for the rest of their lives. Most were worried about their families and wanted to get a job as soon as possible so that they could help them survive.
Some I have encountered afterwards. They have managed to establish themselves as nursing assistants or ward attendants. Others have chosen to continue their studies.
During the election campaign, I took a taxi to some event that I actually don't remember, but which I assume I was late for because I rarely take a taxi. What surprised me about this taxi ride was the taxi driver. It was a young girl whom I had interpreted as [a man]. I was positively surprised, partly because she had a job, but above all because she had chosen a profession that in Sweden is still not obvious for women.
The claim that Sweden has failed with integration is something we have heard from this rostrum more times than I wish to remember. It is such a life-threatening but also deliberate misconception of reality, because the overwhelming majority of people who immigrate to Sweden succeed in establishing themselves and creating good lives here.
When we in the integration debate constantly talk about people in a generalizing and derogatory way, we condemn tens of thousands of people – people who live in our country and work in the public sector, with our elderly or in our business life – based on the actions of a few criminal individuals. That is exactly how Camilla spoke about the gang-criminal clans, whom she doesn't really know who they are.
This type of rhetoric, this derogatory way of talking about people, only leads to more polarization and more alienation. It does not contribute to better integration. An immigrant is not better equipped for the labor market because one puts them down or speaks about them in a stigmatizing way. It does not lead to any new jobs either.
If we are to find solutions to the societal challenges we face, we must see reality as it is, see that we have allowed economic inequalities to grow in Sweden for far too long and that economic vulnerability has always been a risk factor for ill health, crime, and social exclusion - completely regardless of ethnicity.
The solution does not lie in doing what the government is doing now and punishing people who try to establish themselves by building their entire integration policy on the Sweden Democrats' distorted reality. If we listen to the SD representatives, Mr. Speaker, we are told that the Swedish folk stock is threatened by the multicultural society, that a woman in a veil and folk costume is a rape of Sweden and that civil servants are asylum activists. That is what the government's integration policy is based on - those ideas, those opinions and those values.
The Tidö parties' integration policy is not about improving SFI, about more training programs targeting shortage occupations, or about proposals on how more people should establish themselves faster. The government's policy in this area aims to confirm SD's distorted version of reality by making life situations more difficult for Swedes with a foreign background. It is not integration policy. It is dehumanization policy.
One can ask why the government agrees to implement reforms based on a rotten view of humanity. Is power really worth discarding some of the fundamental pillars of our society – the principles of the rule of law and the principle of all people's equal value?
Mr. Speaker! I shall move on to speaking about another group who are actually not covered by the establishment measures. On Friday, it will be one year since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine. Right from the start of the war, Miljöpartiet pointed out how important it is that we receive the people who come to Sweden as refugees from the war in a good way. Therefore, we proposed that the measures made for the Ukrainian refugees should be functional in both the short and long term so that we do not risk locking people into unsustainable situations if it turns out that they need to stay here for a longer period. Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, we were not heard for our proposals.
A year later, the Ukrainian refugees who receive protection in Sweden still do not have the right to either SFI, establishment measures, or establishment allowance. They have the right to work, but for many, it is difficult to find work when they have not learned Swedish.
At the same time, they receive lower compensation than other refugees because they do not receive establishment allowance. Instead, they have to live on the very low daily allowance for asylum seekers. An adult human gets 71 kronor a day for both food and clothes. When I wrote this speech, I thought about it – 70 bucks. That is a large caffè latte, and that doesn't even include a pastry. You don't even get a pack of tobacco for that. How is a human supposed to manage on this? It is terrible, I can state. For children, the compensation is even lower.
We have thus rigged a system that forces people to live in poverty. This autumn, the news came that Ukrainian women now constitute the single largest group of women exploited in prostitution among those that the Gender Equality Authority has become aware of. The authority points out that the vulnerable situation that it entails to have protection under the mass flight directive is a factor. The lack of establishment measures for the Ukrainian refugees creates enormous human suffering.
All people have the right to a dignified life, but not all people have the right conditions or their own resources to create a dignified life for themselves. Ukrainian refugees are in need of establishment measures. They are in need of opportunities and a humane treatment.
Mr. Speaker! I feel an enormous fear regarding what consequences the government's dehumanization policy will have for all of us who live and work in this country, regardless of whether we are newcomers or have lived here for generations. In the game the government is playing to stay in power, we are all losers.
With this said, I move for approval of reservation 12, which concerns measures aimed at foreign-born women who risk long-term unemployment, and reservation 15 on countering segregation and improving integration.
FÖRSTE VICE TALMANNEN
I want to remind that we in the chamber debate by addressing the Speaker, and we do not use "du" or first names but say "the member" or first and last names.
Magnus Jacobsson (KD)
Mr. Speaker! Thank you, Leila Ali Elmi, for your speech. I look at you - I apologize, Mr. Speaker - because it actually testifies exactly to what you carry with you. I take much of this to heart and listen to it, because I share the perception raised by the member: that in Sweden there is an attitude that aims at diminishing, simplifying, and blaming. I have no other perception, Mr. Speaker.
There is only one problem. In the same way as immigrants and refugees are diminished, I heard, when I listened to this speech, Mr. Speaker, a powerful diminishing of myself. I am bourgeois. I am even proud right-wing. I have always worked with integration issues and think they are important. It is actually not so simple that we can diminish each other. On the contrary, we would, Mr. Speaker, benefit from listening to each other.
I think it was a very good speech in many respects, Mr. Speaker, but I was also very disappointed by the disparagement. There can be bourgeois people who actually burn for solidarity, justice, order and decency, and security. We may have different ways of thinking about how we should live up to this, and I would probably like to say, Mr. Speaker, that we have all failed.
I come from a city where the proportion of non-Nordic population was 12 percent when I started in politics. When I entered the Riksdag, it was 22 percent. I see quite a few children who are not getting what they are entitled to.
Leila Ali Elmi (MP)
Mr. Speaker! I share Member Magnus Jacobsson's view that we should not ridicule each other or diminish the other's ambitions and will. I share that image, I just want to say that.
But I find it very difficult to understand the Christian Democrats. I believe the member is sincere when he says that he wants to improve integration for the people who come to Sweden and enable a good life for them. But at the same time, the member's party allies itself with a party that considers people like me to be Muslims who are not even human. It becomes very difficult. And you do not just ally yourselves with the Sweden Democrats; you implement the Sweden Democrats' policy.
If you read the integration section of the Tidö Agreement, you see quite clearly what kind of policy it is. It is about deterrent factors – about worsening welfare for people with a foreign background so that no more immigrants come here. It is about return for those who are already here. And the third thing, which you raised, is about a benefit reform. The benefits should be lowered, and that would somehow be a magic solution to get people into work.
When you take a stand behind that type of policy, I find it difficult to fully believe that your ambition actually is to improve integration.
Magnus Jacobsson (KD)
Mr. Speaker! I have read the Tidö Agreement on several occasions. It is in the nature of the matter that one reads a document that one's own party stands behind. In several of the paragraphs that Leila Ali Elmi refers to, Mr. Speaker, there are very clear writings that this shall be investigated and that it shall comply with European and international law. I will wait for those investigations before I comment on this much more, because I believe it will be very interesting to see what they land on. But what we agree on in the Tidö Agreement is that it shall comply with European and international law. These are, in my opinion, incredibly important principles when we talk about integration.
Then we must be able to admit that we have not succeeded. I don't know all the towns in Sweden, but I know Uddevalla quite well. We have two areas called Dalaberg and Hovhult, where we have the school in the middle. We have students who fail in school, and the language environment during recess is actually not Swedish at all. We have an unemployment rate among the adults of 50 percent. If I remember correctly, it is 40-60 percent of the children who do not manage the basic parts before they move up to upper secondary school. They come to Ramnerödsskolan, which, gladly enough, has achieved better results over the last year and a half, but where it has been extremely difficult with poor study results.
One can compare this with Ljungskile and Herrestad or with Tureborg, which is also an area with a high concentration of immigrants in Uddevalla but where the students attend two different schools.
We must be able to admit that it is important how the structures look if all children are to have the same opportunities. We have failed, and we need to get better.
Leila Ali Elmi (MP)
Mr. Speaker! The Christian Democrats' plan for this parliamentary term is, therefore, to bury all Sweden Democrat politics in inquiries. I do not think the Sweden Democrats will be very happy about that. They are, after all, Sweden's second-largest party and the largest party in your government base, and I find it very difficult to see that they would agree to that, simply because it's a bad deal.
I want to return to this, that we must have the strength to admit that we have problems in school and that children are failing in school. We need to have the strength to admit it and also come up with the political solutions that can remedy the problem in school.
The school's problems do not have much to do with the integration policy we have had. It has nothing to do with that. It has much more to do with the fact that we today have a market school in Sweden. It is a fundamental problem, but the citizens do not want to realize that, because it is much simpler to blame immigrants.
You do not want to invest in the welfare. You do not want to remove privatization. You do not want and do not have the strength to make the changes required to turn the social development in a positive direction. You do not have the strength to do it.
The deliberation was hereby concluded.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.