A non-governmental majority in Parliament wants to enable councils to force children from vulnerable families into crèches, something that the Danish People’s Party (DF) says will help to fight gang warfare, according to Berlingske Tidende.

“Social services should go to those vulnerable families that they can see will produce gang members in a few years and demand that the children are sent to crèches. Let’s grab the problem at its core and say – this is basically immigrant families who are completely closed into their own closed world,” says DF Leader Pia Kjærsgaard, who suggests that child welfare payments could be stopped as a sanction.

At the same time, Kjærsgaard suggests cutting funding to councils who do not take the task seriously.

Forty percent at home
According to Statistics Denmark, 40 percent of immigrant one-year-old children are looked after in the home.

According to Social Democratic Social Affairs Spokeswoman Mette Frederiksen, with the support of the Socialist People’s Party, the new law will get more children into crèches.

“It would strengthen children tremendously because in the institutions pre-school teachers can stimulate them – a benefit they may not currently have. And they would be able to learn Danish much quicker, something that is vital for their later schooling,” Frederiksen tells Berlingske Tidende.

Social Affairs Minister Karen Ellemann (Lib) says that local councils can already force parents to send their children to crèches and that parents can lose their child benefits if they refuse.