Minister wants to get tough on immigrant parents

Karen Hækkerup proposes cuts to social help to immigrant parents of young truants and criminals

Karen Hækkerup (Socialdemokraterne), the minister for social affairs and integration, said that too many young boys from immigrant backgrounds are growing up with a disregard for Danish community standards. She wants councils to start cutting benefits to parents who do not ensure that their children stay in school and obey the law.

Hækkerup said that immigrant families must observe social norms and not be viewed as victims. She wants to keep young boys from growing up in what she called a "parallel society" of crime and gangs in an effort to hopefully prevent the kind of unrest that is currently plaguing Stockholm from coming to Denmark.

"We already have an ethnic proletariat developing in certain places," Hækkerup told Berlingske newspaper. "It's scary to think about what could happen if we do not get control of it."

The government will also develop parenting programmes for vulnerable families from immigrant and refugee backgrounds.

Enhedslisten spokesperson Pernille Skipper was outraged by the minister's statements.

"How can Karen Hækkerup believe that making families poorer will serve as a deterrent to crime among young people? Rhetoric does not solve problems," Skipper told Berlingske.

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