Morocco’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Nasser Bourita, said senior officials from Sweden “denied all accusations of a systematised government policy to remove Arab and Muslim diaspora children from their families.”
Bourita said this while responding to questions from MPs, and Ambassadors from Arab and Muslim countries who met recently.
The statement comes in the wake of news reports indicating that Swedish social services removed two children of Moroccan origin and placed them under the custody of foster families.
The news sparked outrage among activists and some Islamic clerics including NGOs that accused Swedish authorities of “systematically abducting” Muslim children and placing them under the custody of Christian families.
The MP had Bourita about the government’s efforts to address “the suffering of the Moroccan diaspora in Sweden in the face of discrimination and the abduction of their children to place them in Christian or homosexual foster families.”
The note further adds that “a few dozen Moroccan families had had their children taken away from them, according to unofficial estimates.”
In his reply, Bourita said that Morocco’s foreign affairs ministry is following closely and with “great interest” the case through the Moroccan embassy in Sweden.
The Moroccan embassy in Sweden has contacted the families, as well as their relatives in Morocco, to “closely follow these two cases,” the minister explained.
Two months ago, the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs spoke out against the allegations.
“A disinformation campaign is currently under way on various social media – both in Sweden and abroad – alleging that Swedish social services kidnap Muslim children. This information is wrong. It is seriously misleading and aims to create tensions and spread mistrust,” a statement on the ministry’s Twitter reads.
Noting the legal process underlying the decision to remove children from their families, the Swedish ministry explained that social services “do not kidnap children,” adding that “all children in Sweden are protected and cared for equally under Swedish legislation, including the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.”
