Sweden has to admit its failed integration

Several days ago Sweden's discrimination ombudsman highlighted the negative treatment commonly given to Roma childern in schools and daycare facilities. Dagens Nyheter newspaper reminds readers that according to a study carried out last autumn, more than half of all Roma children in the city of Malmö attend school rarely, if at all. "Roma children were denied access to schools right into the 1960s. Now that they can go to school, they are discriminated against. And according to the study, teachers in Malmö do not seem to miss the children when they are absent. The children's position as outsiders is compounded by the fact that their parents are also situated outside society: only one in ten Roma living in Malmö has a job. Efforts to treat Roma like all other citizens - and to make the same demands on Roma children as on all other children - have only just begun. Admitting how miserably integration has failed is a good start."

» more information (external link, Swedish)
More from the press review on the subject » Domestic Policy, » Sweden, » Europe

» To the complete press review of Thursday, November 13, 2008