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February 14, 2012
Stockholm mum charged over Polish 'slaves'
Published: 1 Feb 10 10:18 CET | Double click on a word to get a translation
Updated: 1 Feb 10 17:15 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/24718/20100201/
A 46-year-old mother of four has been charged with trafficking and other offences after keeping her Polish nannies and cleaner under "slave-like" conditions in her Solna home.
- Four years in jail for Indian smuggling ring (21 Jan 10)
- Three convicted for sex trafficking of Slovak teen (14 Jan 10)
- Seven arrests as police smash trafficking ring (7 Dec 09)
The Polish women, reported to be in their early twenties, were forced to work as cleaners and nannies for up to 19 hours per day, seven days a week in return for slave wages.
The young women were housed in a cramped closet in a lavishly furnished three bedroom apartment in the Stockholm suburb of Solna.
The newspaper reports that the young women were subjected to threats of violence and were forced to steal clothing and home decor on behalf of their employer who had originally promised them a monthly wage of 10,000 kronor ($1,400).
According to the charge sheet, one of the women in fact received eight kronor a day for four months, while another received no money at all.
The investigation and charges cover treatment meted out to four Polish women tricked into coming to Sweden and employed by the woman for periods of up to four months.
The matter was brought to the attention of the police after one of the women was able to report the treatment to the Polish embassy in Stockholm.
The 46-year-old woman is reported to live on social welfare and receives some income from a partner living at another address and whom police have not been able to link to the trafficking charges.
The woman denies all charges.
Peter Vinthagen Simpson
news@thelocal.se
+46 8 656 6518
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Make no mistake about it, the action of this mother is a crime against humanity. Punishment for this sort of crime should be severe to prevent a repeat.
The tagedy is what happens to the children if in case the mother is sentenced to serve prison terms? Is it like punishing the children? What happens to children who have seen such cruelity?
This a lot of thought for discussion
@Beynch. FYOI ;-) The 46-year-old woman is reported to live on social welfare and receives some income from a former partner, who police have not been able to link to the trafficking charges.
The woman denies all charges.
@Audeian ... lets not get into excuses..... there are thousands of single parents with 4 kids not just in SE but in India, Africa,etc... and they don't do such things. What happens to the children if their mother is in jail? They live in a better environment without such a cruel mother and without seeing cruelty. To leave the children with such an animal is the real cruelty ... I hope you are not suggesting that becos she has 4 children she should not be jailed... There is not much to think ...
@Beynch .... why do you wonder whether the mother is Polish? I hope that you are not suggesting that such cruel mothers cannot be swedish or english or others.
@peropaco ... i agree with u ..... she should go to jail and wash the toilet and live in a 2 x 3 meter room and have porridge for breakfast, lunch and dinner and experience her own nasty actions.
we always think that men are only capable of nastiness..... apparently ... sex has nothing to do with violence, etc......
ha ha
Desperation is a term we can talk about for a Southamerican single mother with three kids, no welfare, no money from the partner and going to work everyday for a salady that doesn't cover the minimum expenses. Not for someone living in a three room apartment in Solna. Please, let's try to be fair to a worldwide context in order not to drop comments.
Besides if you are desperate I guess you will have some other priorities in your list that having three nannies/cleaners.
Let's get real.
You are a perfect example of a bleeding heart liberal that does more harm than good.
You are making the assumption that just because she is on welfare - she should be.
Is she on welfare just because she is a single mom? I understand that sweden has cheap childcare (subsidized by the socialst taxing of the middle class) so she should get a job and contribute to society.
Now the 19 hours thing etc is pretty harsh if true, and so is the wage if it was shared between the girls.
I'm playing devil's advocate here by asking, but....
What if the claims against the woman are false and these claims were made up as a result of the woman not giving them a higher wage etc?
You wnna convince me that the WT just woke up and noted that she has been working so many hours and been treated as a slave....???
How come she didnt quit this job in the first days or even report her?
Questions?
he actually goes by Nordic Sheet ;)
Had a well educated friend from Brazil that could only get a job as a nanny in Ostermalm. She was payed 45 kr an hour.
It is more common than we think.
@glamelixir
I believe you misread the article. The girls were promised 10,000 a month to trick them in to coming over.
Real wages:
"According to the charge sheet one of the women in fact received 8 kronor a day for four months, while another received no money at all."
Don't put it as if she had no other choices, that's just bull. Her maybe difficult economical situations is no excuse for such evil act.
Why should a woman who has no form of income sh*t out 4 kids in the first place? Such stupid genes should just be left to the hands of Natural selection for elimination instead of being supported by the society.
It's not so difficult to imagine under which circumstances people can get stuck in a situation like this: illegal immigrants have no visa, no personal number, etc... They can't just apply for a job ad in the papers. That's how you find engineers working as nannies and cooks - they're outside of the system. People need to learn that when they sneak into a country illegally they have no protection.
Indeed, for some reason I completely missed that part.
FWIW, I do hope that the truth of this comes out in full.
If the woman who offered them work is found guilty of the charges then I hope she doesn't just have her wrists slapped. I hope she gets locked away, fined, and forced to pay what's owed to the girls plus paying Skatteverket the employer's tax + interest + penalties for not declaring it in the first place.
If it turns out that the girls are participating in extortion then they should also be severely punished for making a false report.
I totally agree. And so there is a lesson to be learned - don't be an illegal alien! Especially if you are from an EU country. It's not THAT hard to get a permit. And even if it is a bit difficult and time consuming, at the end of the day you are covered. Things like this happen very often to illegal immigrants, they just don't seem to learn from other proples mistakes. Ehhh....
I don't know if you are aware of it, but if you are a citizen of an EU country, you can't be illegal in Sweden (there are exception on work permits in some countries directed at other countries, but this is not the case). You have the same rights and obligations as the local citizens.
IMHO, what you don't realize about the situation of the Polish girls is that they didn't have any money to buy a ticket back home and possibly couldn't speak English or Swedish well enough to report the woman to the police until one of them found out a way to do it and reported her to the Embassy. If they were really kept as slaves, don't you think that the doors to their little closet would be also locked?
I've heard a lot of cases of similar mistreatment from the UK, so it's really quite common. People get for instance blackmailed into serving their "masters" by threats of being reported to the police for stealing from them. It doesn't matter if the slaves are in fact legal immigrants, no one wants to go to jail for stealing in a foreign country.
That is not totally correct. In Sweden they don't grant you immediate privilege (work permit or social security number) if you are an EU citizen. People who tend to have those jobs processing those papers are not the sharpest knives in the bunch and you get the run around just like a Somaly refugee. I know this firsthand. So these Polish girls not knowing their EU rights were probably subjected to the same treatment I experienced as a EU citizen in Sverige. Furthermore they look upon Polish people as labourers and scumbags employing them really take advantage of them.
However one of the women claims that she received only 1080 kr for 4 months work
Yes, you have to register with the authorities, but in fact you are allowed to work from the first day you arrive when you are an EU citizen. The problem is that you can't work without personal number etc. That's a different matter and I think it should be looked into by EU bureaucrats because it's against the EU rules. Or someone should sue Sweden over this.
The truth is that these girls were not illegal immigrants, but probably came to Sweden to work as au pairs which comes under different rules than normal jobs.
Justice must be served
thanks! I know EXACTLY where you're coming from...
@hanavys
I am well aware of the situation. I am an EU member myslef, living in Sweden on a residency permit. By EU law, Poles and other EU members can stay in Sweden without a permit for a period of 3 months. And a personnumer is not enough. You have to have a residence permit. And yes, you can start work immediately and THEN go through the whole process but as you said, you close to no one will hire you. BUT- to get a personnumer is one thing, to get a permit is another.
Other than that, there are a LOT of 'illegal' EU citizens in Sweden who just can't be bothered to follow regulations and expect the world....
Yes, you are of course right about the procedures. But anyway, all those "illegals" from EU are not real illegals because they can simply cross the border to another EU country (and get evidence that they did) and they can stay as long as they wish. It is their decision and they must be aware of the fact that it brings all sorts of other problems (availability of jobs, social security etc.).
I just wanted to point out that no EU member citizen is in fact really "illegal." And if they are it's their choice and risk. So they should theoretically be in much better situation than the usual outside EU illegals. They are not completely stripped of their rights and still you can see that things like this can happen to them too. Because this was not a matter of illegal or legal immigrants, but a matter of economic dependency, abuse and threats (very similar to domestic violence cases in many aspects).
evidence of crossing a border? what exactly do you mean???? I've NEVER received such! Unless you mean a plane/boat ticket....
I meant something like that to prove that you crossed the border and stayed at least one day outside the country. You are right that it is kind of problematic to get something like that nowadays, but still if you have boat tickets or boarding passes with your name on them, they cannot prove that you didn't leave the country.
I'm guessing that in the case of the slave aupairs, it was also a short term job, so they probably didn't even bother with the technicalities of residence permit etc. But it was also their downfall because otherwise they would be registered and their wages would be official etc....