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IMPRISONED WOMAN CASE

CRIME

Deportation fears delayed abuse report

The fears of a refugee family in hiding and those protecting them provide at least a partial explanation of how a 58-year-old man managed to hold a woman captive in a cabin outside of Eksjö in south central Sweden for nine years without detection.

Published: 10 September 2008 11:21 CEST

Deportation fears delayed abuse report

Victor Zhuk and his family came to Sweden from Ukraine in 2003, but their asylum application was denied, forcing them underground, reports the Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) newspaper.

The family eventually met Pentecostal pastor Siwert Ahrrén, who offered the pair sanctuary at the campground he owned outside of Eksjö, in a cabin next to the one rented by the 58-year-old man.

It didn’t take long before the 58-year-old made it clear he didn’t like his new neighbours.

He verbally and physically threatened both Ahrrén and Zhuk’s family, and on one occasion he went so far as to hit Zhuk’s wife.

“We couldn’t go to the police, despite that he hit my wife and was holding that sick woman like a prisoner. Then we could have been unmasked and sent back to Ukraine,” Zhuk told SvD.

In 2006, the Zhuks finally received permanent residency in Sweden and both Zhuk and his wife began working

Feeling secure that the family’s future was safe in Sweden, Zhuk’s wife filed a complaint with police about the 58-year-old in November of 2007.

It came as a shock to the family, however, that police would wait ten more months before taking action.

“It’s hard to believe that this can happen in the democracy of Sweden. Why didn’t the authorities intervene right away?” said Zhuk.

Looking back, campground owner Ahrrén says he didn’t see any other choice than to remain silent despite what he knew about the 58-year-old and the sick woman.

“My hands were tied. I suspected that the woman wasn’t well, but if I had done something about it the refugees would have suffered. There is so much that I could say,” he said to SvD.

How many immigrants are overqualified for their jobs in Sweden?

The findings are part of an investigation by Lighthouse Reports, the Financial Times, El País and Unbias The News which found that most European countries fail to provide good job opportunities to educated foreigners – potentially at the cost of their labour forces and economies.

“While the results differ slightly between labour market outcomes, a consistent pattern emerges: immigrants lag behind natives everywhere, but brain waste is worst in Southern Europe, Norway, and Sweden,” the report read.

One of the metrics used to measure brain waste was the proportion of foreign residents who were overqualified for their role.

In Sweden, 32 percent of university-educated Swedes were overqualified for their roles, according to their report, while 68 percent of immigrants educated abroad were overqualified for their job.

The report didn’t study native Swedes with foreign diplomas, but one thing to note is that immigrants who obtained their qualifications in Sweden were far less likely to be overqualified than those who got their degrees outside of Sweden.

For immigrants with a degree from Sweden, 35 percent were overqualified (the difference to native Swedes was not statistically significant).

The results are not surprising, and the problem of well-educated immigrants not being able to work in their chosen profession has been raised on multiple occasions – for example in connection with Sweden’s new work permit salary threshold squeezing out highly-qualified foreigners.

An OECD report found as early as 2014 that a much bigger proportion of highly-educated foreign-born people in Sweden were overqualified for their roles, compared to the native population.

“Given the large number of Swedish immigrants who obtained their education and work experience abroad, there is a strong need for efficient and credible recognition of their qualifications and validation of informal competences,” urged the OECD report at the time.

But the Lighthouse Reports study pointed out that the figures for Sweden pointed to a systemic problem across the entire labour market, which doesn’t only affect well-educated immigrants.

“Once we look at metrics of brain waste that are not dependent on education, such as under-employment and unemployment, the large gaps in Southern Europe (and Sweden) reappear. This indicates that these countries struggle to integrate migrants into the labour market in general, not just college-educated migrants,” it read.

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