The Gothenburg city is the second largest city of Sweden after Stockholm the capital city of the country and locates in the Southwest of the country. According to an official report by the social service authorities in 2026, in Gothenburg only in 2024, 26,300 children and young people were taken from their primary care guardians and placed what they called “round-the-clock care” HVB-HEM from social services. Two-thirds of these children and young people received care on a voluntary basis. The gender distribution was even, 52 percent were boys and 48 percent were girls.
Similarly, in 2023, 18,800 children and young people were placed in foster homes (Familie-Hem) According to the report of the social services, these children have been often experienced difficult conditions before they were placed as the social authorities expected that children are going to find security in a new family. At the same time, they miss and worry about the parents they cannot live with.
The action of the social services in Gothenburg was justified as necessary interventions to save children and women from variety of problems as following: –
- Threat of criminality, or to be hired by gangs
- Family problems and the socio-economic challenges
- House-hold violence and violations against women and girls’ rights by their husbands, or fathers.
- Mental illness of parents, or conflict between parents over fostering their own children
- Assumed threat from one of the parents to the other as claimed by one of the parents.
- Women’s oppression by men as mentioned in several paragraphs of the report.
Moreover, according to the 2026 Social Services report for the City of Gothenburg, the proportion of children and young people who are brought to the attention of social services (becomes a case) is increasing throughout the city. This increase is currently greatest in the Southwest and in Hisingen. Different reasons by age: For younger children (0–12 years), the most common reasons for social service interventions are lack of care and violence in close relationships. For teenagers (13–20 years), it is more often about their own behavior, mental illness or connections to crime. Focus on crime: The Hisingen Social Administration has increased the number of care days for young people in its operational plans according to the LVU (Law on the Care of Young People), which is a direct result of intensified work to prevent young people from being recruited into criminal gangs.
However, as we have interviewed some parents who lost their children due to the intervention of the social service in Gothenburg, Hisingen in the case of children withdrawal due one or several justifications that we have mentioned above, the parents informed us that social committee i Hisingen (Social nämden) often re-acts quickly without proper investigation on issues at the hand and sometimes the results of the investigations are biased and partial, the interviewees have also informed that some of the case investigators lacks experiences and affluent knowledge, or skills to conduct full-fledged investigation as many of the social service employees are young people in their twenties , or just currently graduated from school, or have no specialized knowledge in relation to the social work.
In addition, that, after withdrawal of the children from their own biological parents, the social services put those children either what foster family homes, or HVB-Hem based on how they evaluated the needs of the child and the past history, or indeed the criminal record of the youngsters. One of the parents whom we had interviewed told us that people in the foster families often abuse his child and child was insulted, humiliated and threatened by the responsible man in the foster family and forced to eat a food that the kid doesn’t want. Another parent informed us that his son met violence and intimidation and more control from workers in the HVB-Hem in which his kid was locked in.
Similary parents whom we interviewed shed the light on relations between the social service authorities in Gothenburg and the privately owned companies called HVB-hem who runs the facilities where the children are kept in. As social service staffs and the social committee have acquittances with those who run foster families and the HVB-hem centers who usually get lucrative contracts from the social service authorities or indirectly from the public taxation money to keep children locked in these places.
As the compensation for a child in an HVB home or a family home differs greatly because HVB homes are professional institutions, while family homes are private homes. The City of Gothenburg follows national guidelines and market prices, which means that an HVB home costs on average between 2,000 and 8,000 SEK per day, while a family home receives between 15,000 and 24,000 SEK per month in total per child. Here is a detailed breakdown of how much is paid for the different types of care. according to Swedish taxation agency report
Moreover, In the case of emergency on-call placements or extremely resource-intensive care, the cost in individual cases can be 10,000 SEK to 22,000 SEK per day. This money for HVB homes goes to pay trained staff who work around the clock, premises costs, permits, union dues, and treatment and education for the children.
On the other hand, the report of the social services asserted the importance of their interventions and efforts in 2025 in dealing with the most common intervention for children and young people as they highlighted on addiction, household violence, honor-related violence, however, the report didn’t mentioned about the violence and abuse inside their system where they put in children and youngsters and the consequences of insults, attacks and harassment that these children suffer daily at the hands of what they called foster families and HVB-hem.
Elisabeth Linde (S) from the Social democrats is the chairwoman of the district council’s individual committee. and she is responsible of every single decision to take children from their parents in Gothenburg as she signs the final decisions submitted by her staffs in Gothenburg, we have tried to contact her and ask about what is going on, but telephone line didn’t work as we wished, we will continue to contact on the issue for further details and will update our article as soon we got response from her side.
Written by: Zahra Farah .