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Majority of Muslims want special treatment for their children

TheCopenhagenPost
October 21st, 2015


This article is more than 9 years old.

Privacy shower curtains and halal meat among the items Danish Muslims would like to see at daycare centres and schools

Many Muslims would like to see this Danish delicacy off the menu at schools (photo: Kenneth Jorgensen)

Danish Muslims and the rest of the population have very different opinions about whether there should be special consideration given to Muslim children at schools and daycare centres, according to a Wilke poll conducted for Jyllands-Posten.

While nearly 74 percent of the Muslims said there should be a shower curtain hung so that it’s possible to take a shower privately after sports or swimming, only 40 percent of the Danes believed one was needed.

Some 83.4 percent of Muslims said halal meat should be served at Danish nurseries, kindergartens and schools, compared to just one in four of the Danes.

Cutting the pork
The former prime minister, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, said in 2013 that “there has to be room for ordinary meatballs and roast pork” at Danish institutions.

But Dan Jørgensen, Socialdemokraterne’s integration spokesperson, doesn’t see why people would have an issue with halal meat in schools.

“In most places it could be done with a normal, pragmatic approach. I don’t see the big problem,” he said.

Submission to Islam
In Randers, Dansk Folkeparti (DF) has insisted that local institutions respect ‘Danish food culture’.

“It is submission to Islam to drop meatballs and eat halal meat,” said DF’s integration spokesman, Martin Henriksen.

READ MORE: Hospital uses only halal beef

Integration expert Jens Peter Frølund Thomsen from Aarhus University said that the figures reveal that Muslim immigrants have different views than the rest of the population regarding whether or not Denmark should be a multicultural society.


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A survey carried out by Megafon for TV2 has found that 71 percent of parents have handed over children to daycare in spite of them being sick.

Moreover, 21 percent of those surveyed admitted to medicating their kids with paracetamol, such as Panodil, before sending them to school.

The FOLA parents’ organisation is shocked by the findings.

“I think it is absolutely crazy. It simply cannot be that a child goes to school sick and plays with lots of other children. Then we are faced with the fact that they will infect the whole institution,” said FOLA chair Signe Nielsen.

Pill pushers
At the Børnehuset daycare institution in Silkeborg a meeting was called where parents were implored not to bring their sick children to school.

At Børnehuset there are fears that parents prefer to pack their kids off with a pill without informing teachers.

“We occasionally have children who that they have had a pill for breakfast,” said headteacher Susanne Bødker. “You might think that it is a Panodil more than a vitamin pill, if it is a child who has just been sick, for example.”

Parents sick and tired
Parents, when confronted, often cite pressure at work as a reason for not being able to stay at home with their children.

Many declare that they simply cannot take another day off, as they are afraid of being fired.

Allan Randrup Thomsen, a professor of virology at KU, has heavily criticised the parents’ actions, describing the current situation as a “vicious circle”.

“It promotes the spread of viruses, and it adds momentum to a cycle where parents are pressured by high levels of sick-leave. If they then choose to send the children to daycare while they are still recovering, they keep the epidemic going in daycares, and this in turn puts a greater burden on the parents.”