IKEA gets sued by 5-year old girl’s family for discrimination? Posted by Katja on Feb 2, 2012 in Uncategorized
In Sweden it isn’t very common that people go round suing each other. But Monday this week the incident about the girl with a chromosome disorder who wasn’t let into the ball room due to “safety reasons” according to (Malmö’s) IKEA manager, was brought up again. The 5-year old girl was not allowed into the ball room which only had 2 other children playing in it, even though the mother offered to come inside too, as the adult responsible for the child. The staff at IKEA say they do not make judgements on the children’s communicative ability, even though in this case the seem to have done so.
This incident has been on the news, discussed in school classes all round Sweden and has in general upset a lot of people I think. To me, this gives a picture of what Sweden is like. What Swedes (or at least some of them) get worked up about. The fact that this story got a lot of attention on the news indicates something too I think.
Even though IKEA offered the family 20 000 Swedish crowns, the family have declined the offer and are proceeding to sue IKEA because they feel that the girls rights were totally violated and the way they were treated was completely unacceptable.
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Comments:
Natasza:
Plus, they can win much more in the court.
oo:
And are “security reasons” the exact words (in english) that are used, or is it your mis-translation that should be “safety reasons”? The latter sounds much more likely.
I see 0 references to this on thelocal.se, dn.se and aftonbladet.se. svt.se doesn’t show any either.
Source references, please. Thanks.
Katja:
@oo Thank you for noticing that! I have changed what is written in the post to safety reasons as it should be.
http://www.dagensjuridik.se/2011/05/ikea-stams-diskriminering-av-femarig-funktionshindrad-flicka
If you can read Swedish then you might be able to get some more information from the above linked site.
http://debatt.svt.se/2011/10/27/darfor-har-var-manniskorattsorganisation-stamt-ikea/
This is yet another incident but with a different family, in Karlkstad, I think.
http://www.sydsvenskan.se/malmo/article1467876/Funktionshindrad-fick-inte-leka-i-bollhavet.html
This is article is from a “real” newspaper
Hope this helps 😉
Toni:
My son was denied entry into the play area due to his Autism. We have a petition at change.org please sign it and share on your social media.
https://www.change.org/p/ikea-stop-discriminating-against-disabled-children