19.09.2014 Berlin: threatened child removal of Rroma evokes resentment

Youth workers of the Berlin district of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg have threatened to take away the children of Rroma families if they continue to live outdoors. According to the journalist Long-Lendorff (2014), during the summer months Rroma migrant workers and their families have been living in and around the Görlitz Park and on a wasteland of the Kreuzbergian Cuvrystraße for many years. The concern about the children welfare is therefore exaggerated. However, this is seen differently by the youth welfare office: “Employees of the youth office presented the families earlier this week a letter in which they were asked to look for an accommodation at least for their children. These were in danger due to the outdoor life. “We’ll be back in a few days. If you still live overnight with your children here, we will take your children into care”, the letter says […].” Those responsible acknowledge that a child removal cannot be for the children’s good. However, there is too big a housing shortage in the district, so that one cannot simply provide housing for all families affected. The Rroma association Amaro Foro and the Senate commissioner for integration, Monika Lüke, criticised the planned action as totally inappropriate: if anything, one has to provide housing for the whole families and not unnecessarily destroy them. Moreover, child removal would also align to a very questionable historical continuity of earlier removals: Children were taken away from Rroma families in several countries of Europe during forced assimilation programs. Sterilisations and child removals often went hand in hand. The children trauma cannot in any way be compared to poor living conditions. Furthermore, it should not be forgotten that most Rroma are committed to integration, but are hindered to do so by structural obstacles and mechanisms of exclusion (compare Berliner Zeitung 2014).