Ordo Iuris Institute intervenes in case of Polish family whose four children were taken away by Swedish social welfare

Klaman family archive

• A Polish couple, who had previously fled to Poland to get away from the Swedish social services, contacted the lawyers of the Ordo Iuris Institute for help after their children had been taken away from them and brought to Sweden.

• Although Mr and Mrs Robert and Ewa Klaman, together with their three children (who hold exclusively Polish citizenship), were legally residing on the territory of Poland, and despite them having left Sweden in the absence of a court ruling on the limitation or termination of their parental authority, Swedish social welfare took their children away and brought them to Sweden with the assistance of the Polish authorities.

• In Sweden prior to this, the Swedish authorities had decided to separate the eldest daughter from her parents by placing her in a foster family and then asked the Polish couple whether they would voluntarily hand over their other children.  

• A Polish court then ordered the forcible removal of the Polish nationals who were residing in Poland, separating them from their parents and relocating them to Sweden, while notifying law enforcement that the children’s mother was unwilling to support these actions by turning over their passports.

• Currently, all four of Mr and Mrs Klaman’s children have been placed in three different foster families in Sweden, where, according to the parents and children, they are forbidden to speak their mother tongue.

• The case file also shows that the Swedish authorities have decided to withhold information from the parents about the children’s whereabouts and to impose a “total social restriction”, meaning that Mr and Mrs Klaman are not allowed to visit their children.

Mr and Mrs Klaman and their four children had been living in Sweden since 2014. Over the course of nine years, the family came to the attention of the Swedish Social Welfare Administration several times due to concerns about domestic violence and an alleged failure to properly care for the children. Despite such allegations by the authorities, following an investigation the Swedish police concluded that there was no evidence that the parents had committed acts of violence. The children themselves consistently denied that there had been any abuse, and the doctors who gave their opinions in the case did not conclude that there were any indications on the children’s bodies to justify the conclusion that there had been parental violence. The authorities nevertheless claimed that the parents were practicing an authoritarian style of parenting and punishment, were maintaining emotional distance, and that they had a limited understanding of the children’s needs for care, emotional availability, stimulation, and advice.

Questionable allegations by Swedish officials – the family returns to Poland

When Mr and Mrs Klaman’s eldest daughter, 14-year-old Kinga, refused to comply with the rules that had been put in place by her parents in November and December 2023, including restricting her access to a mobile phone and asking her to perform simple household chores, she sought help from her school’s superintendent on trumped-up charges. She accused her parents of psychological abuse, which, according to her father’s account, allegedly consisted of his daughter being asked to empty the dishwasher, walk the dog, and help with other daily household chores. Although the girl later withdrew all her allegations against her parents and admitted to lying, she was separated from her parents against her will and placed in foster care last December.

But the Swedish authorities did not stop at taking action in relation to only one of the family’s children. Kinga’s parents were asked directly by the staff of the social welfare authorities if they would voluntarily surrender their other daughters: Tarja (10 years old), Aurora (8), and Diana (7). Not only did they naturally refuse to do so, but after noticing the overzealousness of the office staff and fearing further unlawful and unwarranted interference in their family affairs, they decided to return permanently to Poland with their three younger children. They left all their possessions behind in Sweden, believing that they would be safe in Poland.

Crucially, both the parents and their children are exclusively Polish citizens and, when they returned to Poland on 22 February 2024, their parental rights with regard to their three younger daughters were not restricted in any way. Moreover, as of 22 February a decision had not yet been made by the Swedish Welfare Commission to immediately take custody of the girls, nor was there any other Swedish court order upholding such a decision. In other words, Mr and Mrs Klaman had departed from Sweden with their three children in a completely legal manner, without breaking any court or other official prohibitions, thinking that they would find refuge in their own country and then be able to focus on recovering their eldest daughter.

Due to his job, Mr Robert Klaman has been travelling to Sweden on occasion anyway, and continues to do so, while as of 22 February Mrs Ewa Klaman had taken up permanent residence in Poland with their three youngest daughters.

The Swedish authorities initiate proceedings after the Klaman family returns to Poland

On 23 February 2024 – i.e., after Mr and Mrs Klaman and their children were already living in Poland – the chairman of the Swedish Welfare Administration, specifically its Eksjö Municipality branch, decided to immediately take custody of Mr and Mrs Klaman’s three younger daughters. It was not until 4 March 2024 that the Swedish Administrative Court ruled to uphold this decision. On 5 March 2024, the Municipality of Eksjö requested the Polish Ministry of Justice to enforce the Swedish court’s decision regarding taking custody of Mr and Mrs Klaman’s three minor children. The request was made on the basis of Article 80 of Council Regulation (EU) No 2019/1111 of 25 June 2019 on the jurisdiction, recognition, and enforcement of judgments in matrimonial matters and matters of parental responsibility, and which also concerns international child abduction.[1]

After this request was received, the Polish Ministry of Justice, having obtained information from the Swedish authorities which claimed that the children were possibly being put in danger, referred the case to the District Court in Nysa. The court then officially ordered the preparation of a probation officer’s interview and initiated and conducted evidentiary proceedings on the manner of the parents exercising authority over the minors. At the same time, the court issued a decision to grant security for the duration of the pending proceedings and to establish the supervision of the court superintendent in relation to the exercise of parental authority over the minors.

The Polish probation officer sees no need to separate the children from their parents; the Swedes insist on their decision

The probation officer’s report, which was drawn up after his visit to Mr and Mrs Klaman on 26 April 2024, indicated that there were no problems in the family justifying the separation of the children from their parents. According to the officer’s report, the children were clean, well-cared for, dressed appropriately for the weather, and hugged their parents during the visit. Their neighbours had also not observed any irregularities in the parents’ exercise of their parental authority. In the superintendent’s opinion, it was reasonable, for the duration of the pending proceedings, to provide support to the parents by obliging them to cooperate with a family assistant and to place their exercise of parental authority under the probation officer’s supervision.

The probation officer’s report, as well as the court order, were then sent to the Ministry of Justice. The Minister of Justice, upon receiving the probation officer’s report from the court as well as the Polish court’s decision to initiate child custody proceedings, including granting security, forwarded copies of these documents after they had been translated into English to the requesting authorities with the intention of asking them to consider withdrawing their application. The Swedish welfare authorities nevertheless upheld the application, indicating that a foster family had already been prepared for the minors in Sweden.

As a result, in a letter dated 10 June 2024, the Minister of Justice forwarded the application to the Nysa District Court, which was received by it on 14 June 2024.

The Polish government washes their hands of responsibility and the district court in Nysa decides to implement the Swedish court’s decision

On 19 June 2024, a hearing was held in the case initiated by the Polish court, at which the parents were interviewed. The court adjourned the hearing, and just two days later, i.e. on 21 June, it issued a decision to place the three children in a Polish orphanage, despite the fact that the evidence gathered in the case, including most especially the probation officer’s report, did not provide any grounds for this. One can only guess that the sudden change in the judge’s opinion was motivated solely by the Swedish authorities’ request. The order also concerned the youngest of the girls, Diana, who had been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, a form of autism.

A few days later, according to the children’s parents, two uniformed police officers and two plainclothes ones arrived at their house, together with a probation officer and two women, who took the unsuspecting and frightened children away.

Subsequently, on 27 June 2014, the court, responding to a request from Swedish officials, and having at its disposal evidence from the proceedings it had itself initiated and being aware of the lack of grounds justifying the children’s removal, discontinued the proceedings. On the following day the Polish judge then decided to initiate proceedings regarding the issuing of new passports for the children, after the children’s mother had refused to hand over their existing passports to the officials. The judge’s decision to discontinue the proceedings was appealed to the Opole Regional Court, but as of now no ruling has been made regarding it. Lawyers from the Ordo Iuris Institute will support Mr and Mrs Klaman in these proceedings as well.

It will now be difficult to retrieve the children from the hands of Swedish officials

On 4 July 2024, officials of the Swedish Welfare Administration took custody of the children after they had been returned to Sweden by the Polish authorities and placed the minors in three different, unrelated foster families, where their guardians do not speak Polish and in fact prohibit the children from communicating in it. On top of this, according to the children’s father’s account, the whereabouts of each of the daughters have been concealed from the parents, and contact with them is very limited. These claims were corroborated by an e-mail which was sent to Mr Robert Klaman on 4 July 2024 by an employee of the Swedish Social Welfare Board, which shows that the Chairman of the organisation has decided to keep the children’s whereabouts a secret and to maintain “total social restriction”, which means a ban on visits. At the same time, the parents have pointed out that, contrary to the children’s own claims, the social workers have assured them that the children could not wait to return to Sweden and are happy to stay with their foster families.

The judge who handed the children over to the Swedes despite lack of Swedish jurisdiction now wants to punish the children’s mother for refusing to hand over their passports

Unfortunately, the targeting of the Klaman family by the Polish justice system did not end there. The District Court in Nysa, where the judge in charge of the case had decided single-handedly to hand the Polish children over to the Swedish officials even after the children’s mother had refused to assist in their unlawful and groundless removal, filed an official notification of suspicion that Mrs Ewa Klaman had committed a crime by concealing her own children’s passports.

As early as 28 June 2024 – i.e., on the same day that the judge had officially initiated proceedings to have new passports issued to the children – a court employee, on the judge’s order, sent an e-mail and a letter to the police station in Grodków with a notice of reasonable suspicion that a crime had been committed. According to the court, the mother had fulfilled the definition of the offence by stating that she did not have the children’s passports, which were supposed to be in her husband’s car, and who was not home at the time. According to the court, Mrs Ewa Klaman committed an offence under Article 276 of the Polish Penal Code, consisting in concealing a document that she has no right to exclusively dispose of. For this, she faces a fine, restriction of liberty, or imprisonment of up to two years.

Mr. and Mrs. Klaman requested legal assistance from the Ordo Iuris Institute

It was after their other three children were taken away from them that the desperate parents turned to the Ordo Iuris Institute for help.

With all four children now in foster families in Sweden, the Institute’s lawyers have asked Poland’s Minister of Justice and the Minister of Foreign Affairs to intervene in this case and to provide support in custody proceedings for the minor children. For the time being, the Institute’s aim is first and foremost to bring about a situation in which at least all the children, until the conclusion of the proceedings involving the parents, are placed with a single foster family which is related to them and resides in Poland – an aunt and uncle (whom the children know well and with whom they feel comfortable). In addition, the Institute’s lawyers are demanding information from both ministers about the actions which were taken in this case and whether the Consular Section of the Polish Embassy in Stockholm is monitoring the ongoing proceedings in Sweden. The next step taken by the Institute’s lawyers will be a request to the Polish Children’s Ombudsman for support and cooperation with the Swedish Children’s Ombudsman.

In the opinion of the Ordo Iuris Institute’s lawyers, in upholding the principle of prioritising persons connected to minors by kinship or affinity in foster care, as well as the rights provided by the Convention on the Rights of the Child of 20 November 1989 – namely, the child’s right to be brought up in his natural family environment; in an atmosphere of happiness, love, and understanding; and for family life to be protected from state interference – it is fully justified to request that the Swedish authorities temporarily place these minors in the care of a foster family which is related to them, in a stable and safe environment. Undoubtedly, placing the children in such a foster family would be conducive to alleviating the trauma of separation from their parents, and would create the natural conditions for the children to develop.  

The actions of the Swedish authorities must be regarded from the outset as running contrary to the norms of international law, in particular Article 8 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which grants children the right to be brought up in their natural family environment; in an atmosphere of happiness, love, and understanding; and in which family life is protected from state interference. On the other hand, in a situation where the Swedish court has issued an order to take the children away from Polish nationals only two weeks after their return to Poland, it is quite surprising that the Polish Ministry of Justice considered that such a court decision, which had been taken without proper jurisdiction, should be recognised and enforced in Poland in the light of European Union law – and this despite the fact that the Polish institutions which were monitoring the family’s situation did not observe any worrying signs that would justify taking the children away from them.

A shift in Polish family policy?

Until now, Poland has been widely regarded as a country where families, including those without Polish citizenship, could find safe refuge from abusive child protection authorities of various sorts, such as the Norwegian Barnevernet, which has been repeatedly condemned by the European Court of Human Rights. 

The lawyers of the Ordo Iuris Institute have repeatedly helped families which have fled to Poland to get away from the Norwegian child welfare authorities. At the beginning of October 2023, the District Court in Warsaw granted the request of Ordo Iuris and the prosecutor’s office and refused to surrender to Norway parents who had escaped to Poland along with their six-year-old daughter. Our lawyers’ quick reaction led to the parents being released by the police and the girl being released from the orphanage where she had spent one day. In justifying the decision, the court referred to the arguments of Ordo Iuris’ lawyers, indicating that by coming to Poland with their child, the parents had not committed a crime, and that the case involved the risk that Norway had violated Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights – which concerns the principle of the protection of family life.

We previously helped a Polish family from Braniewo who had returned to their homeland after the Barnevernet had taken their three daughters away from them for 18 months due to unfounded allegations of domestic violence. During the period of separation from her parents, their youngest daughter had stayed with a Norwegian foster family which had failed to provide her with proper medical assistance. As a result, the child began suffering from severe intestinal and gastrointestinal disorders. The second girl was placed in the care of a woman who constantly organised drinking parties and had more alcohol than food in her fridge. Their eldest daughter, on the other hand, was placed in a youth centre where she became a victim of violence. Despite the legal conclusion of the proceedings before the Norwegian court, the Barnevernet sent a letter to the Polish authorities expressing concern about the family’s situation, which led to the initiation of official proceedings. The intervention of our lawyers led to a positive outcome in the case: the Braniewo District Court agreed with the Ordo Iuris position, finding that there were no grounds for interference with parental authority in this case.

Earlier, the Ordo Iuris Institute also helped Norwegian mother Silje Garmo get asylum in Poland together with her little daughter whom the Barnevernet sought to take away from her.

We also helped in another high-profile case, that of a Russian citizen, Denis Lisov, for whom Sweden had issued a European Arrest Warrant. The Warsaw District Court rejected the request to surrender the man, arguing that the Swedish state had violated the European Convention on Human Rights, in particular the principle of the protection of family life. The court stated that Lisov’s conduct was justified in a situation where the Swedish authorities had radically restricted his ability to have contact with his daughters. In addition, the court emphasised that the children enjoyed a very strong bond with their father, yet they had been placed in a culturally dissimilar form of foster care (specifically, in a Muslim family – whereas Denis Lisov’s family is Orthodox Christian). The authorities’ actions therefore ran contrary to the girls’ welfare. In the court’s view, Sweden had not respected the children’s vulnerability. Furthermore, Denis Lisov could not have “kidnapped” his daughters given that he enjoyed full parental authority.

It is to be hoped that European standards for the protection of family life will also be applied in the case of Mr and Mrs Klaman’s family. The overzealous application of EU law must never be used as an excuse to hastily, unjustifiably, and illegally break up families, and genuine concern for the welfare of children should always take precedence.