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UKRAINE

How people in Sweden can offer housing to Ukrainians

Sweden does not yet have an official authority or register for those wishing to offer Ukrainian refugees a place to stay privately, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t possible.

How people in Sweden can offer housing to Ukrainians
A summer cottage. Photo: Fotograferna Holmberg/TT

The Migration Agency told The Local in a press conference that it is working on a solution to make this possible, but recommended that those able to offer housing do so via voluntary organisations instead.

One association you can contact if you want to rent out a room or property is CareBridge, a group offering buses from the Ukraine/Poland border to Sweden, where refugees are matched with hosts offering accommodation.

Their website includes a form where those interested in offering housing can sign up.

CareBridge told The Local via email that it places high important on safety and security for both host families and those arriving in Sweden. “At the moment we personally vet all the host families and check IDs at pick up. In a few weeks, we will have an app that will do the ID check through BankID. We also have a host team who checks in with refugees after they are settled to make sure they have what they need”.

“We collaborate with Refugees Welcome and other organisations,” CareBridge said. “We have a contact person on the Ukrainian side of the border who can find people who want to go to Sweden and match them with hosts even before they cross the border to Poland. On the bus we have a Ukrainian speaking host who can answer questions.”
 
Ukraine Take Shelter is another website offering this service. Their service is worldwide, and those wishing to offer housing can create an account to list their home or apartment and offer information such as whether children are welcome, what languages they speak, and how long refugees will be able to stay.

Another possible way to offer housing or lodging for Ukrainian refugees is by contacting Refugees Welcome directly – they have a Sweden-wide branch, but also local branches in Malmö, Stockholm and Lidköping, as well as a housing branch collecting donations towards rent payments for refugees.

Another method of offering housing is via this Facebook group, matching those seeking accommodation with those who can provide it. Christel Prinsén, the woman behind this Facebook group, is also currently working on building a website to make this process easier and safer, with identity verification to protect those applying for housing and those offering it.

If you are planning on renting out part of your home or your entire property, make sure you understand any rules from your housing association or landlord first, as well as any legal requirements. Here’s our guide.

Please don’t hesitate to get in contact with The Local at [email protected] or under this post if you know of any other ways in which private individuals can offer housing to Ukrainians looking for shelter.

Although we have done our best to verify these housing services, we recommend that anyone looking to offer or rent housing via a service listed above take precautions to verify the identity of anyone they will be staying with and ensure all legal documents are in order to provide a good environment for all parties involved.

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UKRAINE

Ukraine’s ambassador to Sweden criticises ‘deeply offensive’ TV brothel joke

Ukraine's ambassador to Sweden, Andrii Plakhotniuk, has criticised the SVT programme Invandrare för Svenskar (IFS), after comedian Elaf Ali made a joke about Ukrainian women and prostitution on a recent episode.

Ukraine's ambassador to Sweden criticises 'deeply offensive' TV brothel joke

In the programme, whose name translates as Immigrants for Swedes, a play on the Swedish for Immigrants courses offered to new arrivals in the country, celebrity panelists representing a range of immigrant groups in Sweden are tasked with giving varying answers to questions from presenter Ahmed Berhan.

A group of ordinary Swedes then have to guess whether the panelists are lying or telling the truth. 

In an episode on March 7th, contestants were asked to answer the question ‘which immigrant group were granted the most residence permits in Sweden in 2022?’

“It’s actually, unsurprisingly, people from Ukraine,” answered journalist and comedian Elaf Ali.

“That’s not true,” fellow contestant Thanos Fotas remarked.

To which Ali responded: “Maybe you don’t think about it that much because they’re light haired so they blend in,” before adding that “it’s maybe most obvious in, like, the brothels.”

Ukrainian Ambassador to Sweden, Andrii Plakhotniuk, reacted on social media site X saying that he was “deeply upset” by Ali’s joke. He demanded that she apologise and that and public broadcaster SVT, who broadcast the programme,”takes the necessary measures to prevent similar situations in the future”.

“I consider such statements deeply offensive and completely unacceptable, given the circumstances of the full-scale Russian military aggression against Ukraine, which forced Ukrainian women to flee abroad to save their lives and the lives of their children,” Plakhotniuk wrote.

Ali addressed the criticism in a post on X.

“In the season premiere of IFS, which was broadcast last week, I made jokes about an imam, Somalians and about the tragedies of war (Ukraine) – women who are forced into prostitution,” she wrote, adding that the Ukrainians were “super angry” and had been “bombarding” her on social media. 

“So many harsher things have been said, but the idea that a group of people should be immune from having jokes made about them is crazy. And no one seems to care about using their brain to think a step further. Why are women ending up in this position? Who is buying services from these women?” Ali added in a comment under her post on X.

In a comment to Aftonbladet, the broadcaster’s head of programming, Christina Hill ruled out the possibility of SVT issuing a formal apology.

“IFS is a programme with a clear premise: making jokes about stereotypes surrounding ethnicity and culture, often at the boundary of what’s considered socially acceptable. I think it’s clear that the comment is meant as a joke and believe that our audience understands this,” Hill said.

“It is of course not relevant for SVT to take any measures in response to this, as the content of the programme is covered by Swedish freedom of speech,” she added.

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