Sweden: Demands a change in the law after Tintin’s (8) death

The father was allowed to visit Tintin (8) despite warnings. Now he is charged with having killed his son. On Sunday, the Swedes demonstrated for a change in the law.

The family called him Tintin (8). The boy who smiles in pictures and loved sushi, according to Aftonbladet, which has spoken to the mother.

On 8 January this year, he was supposed to have two hours of contact with his father according to a recent decision from the Swedish District Court, following a dispute between the parents. The mother had warned against contact, and is said to have been afraid, among other things, that the father would try to abduct the boy.

The mother notified the police when the eight-year-old did not come home as agreed. They rushed to the father’s residence, where they found the father injured and the son dead.

According to TV4, coroners believe it is likely that Tintin has been killed.

The father was arrested and charged with killing his own son. According to Expressen, he denies criminal guilt in the case. Charges against the father are expected on 26 January, according to Aftonbladet.

Several reported concern

According to Swedish media, the mother has been fighting for the right to care for Tintin for several years, which she won in 2021. The father still got the right to visit his son.

The mother has argued that any contact with the father should be supervised, while the court believed that it was important that the boy had some contact alone with his father.

According to the mother, the ex-husband has been violent towards both her and her son. And she has not been the only one who has been troubled.

Concerns for Tintin have been reported by both the school, the mother’s family and the police. Aftonbladet describes a situation when the father had to pick up his son from school, and which ended with him being turned away by the police, who later notified social services because they were worried about the boy.

The police described the boy as scared, and that he tearfully explained that he did not want to go with his father, but that he had to because it was his time for togetherness.

But despite the fact that the social services also concluded that the boy was stressed and afraid of contact with his father, he was forced to continue with the visits.

The debate rages

Now the debate is raging in Sweden, because Tintin is not the only child who is forced to spend time with a parent who may pose a danger to the child’s physical or mental health.

– The parents’ right to their children must never come before the child’s best interests. We are now working on a bill to make this a reality, Social Affairs Minister Camilla Waltersson Grönvall told Aftonbladet after the Tintin case became known.

Olga Persson is head of Unizon, which runs over 130 shelters in Sweden. She tells Aftonbladet that:

– The vast majority of women who come to a crisis center have children with them. We tend to say that about a third of these children still have to spend time with the abusive father. In other words, meet the same person who is the reason why the social service pays for the children and the woman to live protected, and who is sometimes also convicted of offenses committed against the child, says Persson.

According to the newspaper Expressen, it was Tintin’s aunt who first demanded a change in the law. An Instagram account called lexTintin has gained thousands of followers. In a post signed “Tintin’s aunt”, it says, among other things:

“We must bring about legislative changes where children’s rights always come first over the perpetrator’s (parent’s) right to contact. No more children should have to die despite countless messages of concern from social services, the school, relatives and neighbours.”