【比利时《政治新闻网》】挣扎于童婚问题的瑞典 [比利时媒体]

Sweden struggles over child marriage

挣扎于童婚问题的瑞典



STOCKHOLM — A row over how to deal with child marriage among immigrants has inflamed political debate ahead of a general election in Sweden, where migration continues to divide public opinion and the far right is riding high in the polls.

斯德哥尔摩-在瑞典大选之前，一场关于如何处理移民童婚问题的争论引发了政治辩论。瑞典的移民继续分化公众舆论，极右翼在民意调查中占据了高位。

A tug-of-war between the ruling Social Democrat-Green Party coalition and the opposition over the government’s role in managing or eradicating the practice — which predominantly affects young girls, and in some cases boys, from immigrant backgrounds — is emblematic of a broader struggle to find a balance between efforts to integrate a large number of new immigrants and preserve a Swedish way of life.

执政的社会民主党-绿党联盟和反对党就政府就管理或根除这一习俗方面的作用展开了激烈的斗争，这种做法主要影响到年轻女孩，在某些情况下也会影响到移民背景的男孩，这象征着更广泛的反恐斗争。在整合大量新移民和保留瑞典生活方式之间努力取得平衡。

“Sweden has been bad at providing people who come here with clear information about how our system works, about this society’s views on children’s rights, gender equality, family policies, and parents’ and guardians’ responsibilities,” said Juno Blom, who is running for parliament on behalf of the opposition Liberal Party.

代表反对派自由党竞选议会议员的朱诺·布鲁姆表示：“瑞典一直不善于向外来移民提供明确的信息，来说明我们的制度是如何运作的，以及这个社会对儿童权利、性别平等、家庭政策以及父母和监护人的责任以及看法。”

“While we insist that Sweden protects children’s rights and that we promote a child-centered approach to children’s welfare, we have allowed children of foreign backgrounds to live as married women with older men,” said Blom, who also acts as Sweden’s national coordinator to counter honor-based violence and oppression.

“虽然我们坚持要求瑞典保护儿童的权利，提倡以儿童为中心的儿童福利方式，但我们允许有外国背景的子女以已婚妇女的身份与年长的男子生活，”布罗姆说，他也是瑞典的国家协调员，反对基于荣誉而施展的暴力和压迫。

“I don’t know what there is to think about. It is, frankly, totally sick that one can’t just simply say no to something as bizarre as grown men having the right to marry children” — Jimmie Åkesson, Sweden Democrats leader

“坦率地说，一个人不能简单地拒绝孩子们嫁给成年人这样古怪的事情，我不知道该如何做想，这完全是病态的”。瑞典民主党领袖吉米·埃克森说。

Although Sweden is known for its commitment to child welfare, it is failing to extend those same protections to its immigrant population, activists and lawmakers say. Opponents accuse the government of being overly cautious in order to avoid being seen as culturally insensitive.

尽管瑞典以致力于儿童福利而闻名，但活动人士和议员们表示，瑞典未能向移民人口中的孩子提供同样的保护，这是完全是件令人恶心的事情。反对者指责政府过于谨慎，以免被视为文化上麻木不仁。



Still, marriages between underaged partners are recognized — and not annulled — if carried out abroad. The government has come under pressure to close that legal loophole and invalidate all marriages that involve minors. But it declined to vote for a proposal — put forward by parliament’s committee on civil affairs this spring — that would do so, saying it was formulating its own plan to tighten existing laws.

不过，未成年伴侣之间的婚姻如果是在国外进行的，就会得到政府的承认-而不会被废除。政府迫于压力，想要填补这一法律漏洞，并使所有涉及到未成年人的婚姻无效。但该项政策被（移民）拒绝投票支持。议会民事委员会今年春天提出了一项提案，该提案表示，它正在制定自己的计划，以修补现有法律政策的不足。



The government’s proposal — which it finally put forward in May — would mean Sweden does not recognize marriages carried out abroad where one or both parties were under 18. It would also require spouses who are over 18 when they arrive in Sweden (but married when they were underage) to renew their vows in order to be legally recognized as married. However, critics say it is unclear how authorities would enforce the rule in practice.

瑞典政府的提议——最终在5月份提出——这意味着瑞典不再承认一方或双方都在未满18岁的情况下在国外举行的婚礼。它还将要求年满18岁的配偶在抵达瑞典时(但在未成年时结婚的)重新举办婚仪，以便在法律上被承认为已婚。然而，批评人士表示，目前尚不清楚当局将如何在实际过程中执行这一规定。

A government pamphlet issued by its National Board of Health and Welfare and targeted at adults with underage spouses also drew fierce criticism, including from Cabinet ministers, for treating the issue too lightly and not clearly communicating that child marriage is against both Swedish law and cultural norms.

国家卫生和福利委员会发行的一本针对成年人娶未成年人做配偶的政府小册子也遭到严厉批评，包括内阁部长也严厉指责，因为他们对这一问题过于轻描淡写，没有清楚地明白的指出童婚既违反瑞典法律又违反文化规范。

The government says it now has a clear and firm position.

政府表示它现在已经有一个明确和坚定的立场。

“There is no retroactivity in Swedish legislation but our stance is that we should not recognize marriages where either of the parties is a child or was a child when he or she got married,” said the minister for children, Lena Hallengren, a Social Democrat.

“瑞典的立法不具备追溯力，但我们的立场是，我们不应该承认任何一方是未成年人，或者结婚时是未成年人的婚姻关系。”社会民主党儿童事务部长莉娜·哈伦格伦说。

“That would run counter to the international commitments Sweden has made to ensure that children are entitled to their childhood.”

“这将违背瑞典为确保儿童享有童年权利而作出的国际承诺。”

But for some, such statements are too little, too late.

但对一些人来说，这样的声明太少了，来得太迟了。

“People see young girls as their sons’ tickets to Europe” — Zubeyde Demirörs, a social worker

“人们认为年轻女孩是她们儿子去欧洲的门票”——社会工作者、极右翼的瑞典民主党人祖贝德德米罗如是说。

The far-right Sweden Democrats, who have been climbing steadily in the polls in recent months, have seized on the issue. In a video posted on the party’s Facebook page, leader Jimmie Åkesson hit out at the government, saying: “I don’t know what there is to think about. It is, frankly, totally sick that one can’t just simply say no to something as bizarre as grown men having the right to marry children.”

极右翼的瑞典民主党在最近几个月的民意调查中一直在稳步攀升，他们抓住了这个问题。在该党脸书主页上发布的一段视频中，该党领导人吉米·埃克森抨击政府说：““坦率地说，一个人不能简单地拒绝孩子们嫁给成年人这样古怪的事情，我不知道该如何做想，这完全是病态的”。

Åkesson held up the much-maligned pamphlet and called on those responsible for producing it to be fired or resign. “There’s an election on September 9,” Åkesson reminded viewers.

埃克森举起了这本备受诟病的小册子，并呼吁那些负责制作小册子的人被解雇或自动辞职。“9月9日有一场选举，”艾克森提醒大众。



“What irks me is that we treat young people and children with foreign backgrounds differently from those with roots in Sweden,” Blom said, recalling a case in which a 19-year-old Afghan girl was allegedly murdered by a much older husband less than a year after she arrived in Sweden from Iran in September 2015.
Her husband was eventually found in Iran in May and extradited to Sweden in June.

布鲁姆说：“让我感到厌烦的是，我们对待有外国背景的年轻人和儿童与那些在瑞典出生的孩子不同。”他回忆起一名19岁的阿富汗女孩在2015年9月从伊朗抵达瑞典不到一年后就被一名大她许多的丈夫杀害的案件。
她的丈夫最终于5月在伊朗被发现，并于6月被引渡到瑞典。



The case, Blom said, got “relatively little attention in the media” and did not spark much political reaction. “If a Swedish teenager had been found murdered and buried, my guess is it would have caused outrage.”

布洛姆说，这起案件“在媒体中得到的关注相对较少”，也没有引起太多的政治反应。“如果是一个瑞典少女被谋杀和草草埋葬，我猜这会引发人们的愤怒情绪。”

The phenomenon of underage marriages predates the major influx of asylum seekers in 2015, but has become harder to ignore as a result of the higher numbers of new arrivals, according to Blom.

布鲁姆说，未成年人结婚的现象在2015年寻求庇护者的大量涌入之前就有，但由于新移民人数的增加，这一现象变得更加难以忽视。

“We saw an upswing in calls to our national support hotline, which professionals like social workers can dial to get advice on how to deal with honor-based oppression,” Blom said, referring to the 2015 influx. “The social workers who called us had met girls who were married to men and who were placed in their municipalities. They didn’t know what to do with them.”

布鲁姆在谈到2015年的移民涌入潮时说：“我们看到了越来越多的人拨打我们的全国支援热线，像社会工作者这样的专业人士可以拨打这些热线，就如何处理基于荣誉的压迫问题寻求建议。”“给我们打电话的社会工作者遇到了婚姻关系中未成年的女孩，她们被安置在各自的城市总。然而接下来社工们不知道该拿她们怎么办。“

Legal loopholes

法律漏洞

A number of young women born and raised in Sweden are also at risk of being exploited as a result of the legal loophole that allows underage marriages carried out abroad to be recognized in Sweden.

一些在瑞典出生和长大的年轻妇女也面临被剥削的风险，这是因为法律漏洞使得在国外进行的未成年婚姻到了瑞典会得到承认。

The national unit against honor crimes, headed by Blom, last year launched a campaign to encourage young people to contact Swedish authorities after it found that girls were being sent to their parents’ home countries over their summer holidays to be married to older men.

去年，以布鲁姆为首的国家打击荣誉犯罪小组发起了一场运动，鼓励年轻人主动与瑞典当局联系。此前，该机构发现，女孩在暑假期间被送回父母的母国，与年长的男子结婚。

“People see young girls as their sons’ tickets to Europe,” said Zubeyde Demirörs, a 45-year-old social worker who runs a shelter for victims of honor-based violence and oppression.

“人们把年轻女孩看作是他们儿子进入欧洲的门票，”45岁的社会工作者祖贝德德米尔尔斯说，她管理着一个庇护所，为荣誉暴力和压迫的受害者提供帮助。

Demirörs has personal experience of the issues she works on. She was 15 years old and had just finished ninth grade — the last year of compulsory schooling in Sweden — when her parents took her to their hometown in Turkey to marry a man 22 years her senior with whom she would have three children.

德米尔尔斯对她所研究的问题有着亲身的体验。她当时15岁，刚读完九年级——这是瑞典义务教育的最后一年——当她的父母带她去家乡土耳其和一个比她大22岁的男人结婚时，她要同他一起生三个孩子。



Demirörs’ case is far from unique, she said: “In my work, I hear similar stories every day.”

德米尔的遭遇远非个例。她说：“在我的工作的地方，每天都听到类似的事情。”

When it comes to forced marriage, the summer is the worst period of the year, said Demirörs.

当谈到强迫婚姻时，德米尔说，夏天是一年中最糟糕的时期。

“This time of year my phone just doesn’t stop ringing. May, June, July — that’s when many girls are taken back to their parents’ home countries, mostly to rural parts of the Middle East and Africa.”

“每年的这个时候，我的电话不停地响着。五月，六月，七月——这些时段许多女孩会父母被带回祖国，大部分被带到中东和非洲的农村地区。”

Demirörs fears the government’s proposed new law would not make much difference.

德米尔担心政府提出的新法律不会有太大影响。

“Over the years, I’ve seen legal amendments, I’ve seen campaigns … And still, we keep coming back to square one. Now we have new challenges, with a large number of people coming to Sweden from societies where honor culture is the norm.”

“这些年来，我看了法律修正案，我看了竞选活动…不过，最终我们还是会回到原点。现在，我们面临着新的挑战，许多人带着荣誉文化为标准的社会习俗来到瑞典。”

Sweden, she said, needs to take proper responsibility for the immigrants it takes in. That involves extending the same protection and rights to all children, regardless of whether they are ethnically Swedish or not.

她说，“瑞典需要对它所接纳的移民承担起适当的责任。这涉及向所有儿童提供同样的保护和权利，无论他们是否属于瑞典人。”

“But our politicians are cowardly,” she said. “They are afraid of taking a principled stance on these issues for fear of being labeled culturally insensitive.”

“但我们的政客都是懦夫，”她说。“他们害怕在这些问题上采取原则性立场，因为他们害怕被贴上对其他文化不友好的标签。”

“It’s different in our neighboring countries. In Denmark and Norway, they’re not afraid of being called racists. And over the years many girls — and boys — in Sweden have suffered for that cowardice.”

“这在我们的邻国是完全不同一番景象的。在丹麦和挪威，他们不怕被称为种族主义者。多年来，瑞典的许多女孩和男孩都因为政客们的这种怯懦而遭受痛苦。”