S and SF want to stop nomad families

Families with ragged, starving, and possibly abused, children should no longer be able to simply move from municipality to municipality, thus avoiding intervention by social services, says Socialdemokratiet (S) and SF.

The comments come in the wake of the infamous Brønderslev case, and the two parties know want to tighten the rules in order to stop the so-called nomad families - families that move to another municipality in order to avoid forcible removal of children from the home, or other intervention on the part of the authorities.

- It is well-known that these families take advantage of the fact that we don't today have an efficient, country-wide, inter-municipal, system of registration for this type of cases. In that way, they can buy themselves time, or possibly entirely avoid that their case is passed on to their new municipality, says Özlem Çekiç, spokesman on social affairs for SF.

Today, cases are handed over from municipality to municipality by first mailing the case file, and then telephoning the new caseworker. Information may get lost in that process and Özlem Çekiç therefore wants to replace that way of doing things by nation-wide registration system.

Socialdemokratiet wants to ensure tighter procedures in transferring cases between municipalities, and Dansk Folkeparti is also willing to consider tightening the rules.

Translated by Martin Lamberth