Children and adolescents in a coma for weeks, months or even years. It is the syndrome of resignation, a mental illness that affects the children of refugees whose asylum applications have not yet been granted or are about to be refused. “What has been observed in these children is stillness, stupor, soft body, the body does not react to pain, it does not react to stimuli, many stop eating“, explains psychiatrist Arash Javanbakht. Also, according to him, the children concerned often spent the crucial years of their development living traumatic experiences.
Since the early 2000s, several hundred cases have been reported in Sweden. For his documentary “Alarm clock on mars“, the director Dea Gjinovci met several families there, some of whom are suffering from the syndrome of resignation. According to her, several hypotheses can explain the phenomenon. First of all, the waiting time for a final answer on the right to asylum can last up to five years in the country, enough time for the children to integrate. “So they go to school, they learn the language and they finally feel Swedish very quickly.“, explains Dea Gjinovci. Thus, a potential refusal of an asylum application will be more difficult for these children to accept.
Another explanation: administrative letters and deportation letters are written in Swedish. “The problem is, parents don’t speak Swedish so it’s often the kids who read the letters and tell their parents the bad news.“, specifies the director. Such a responsibility can be unbearable for some of them.
Long perceived as a “imaginary disease“To facilitate obtaining a permanent residence in Sweden, it is now a recognized pathology. Doctors have proved, for example, that children cannot fake a non-reaction to pain. But the syndrome of resignation remains poorly understood. It is also the subject of controversy in Sweden, in particular because it would go against the image of the country considered as “humanitarian” and “open to foreigners“.
While some children take a long time to resume a normal life after awakening, others, on the contrary, recover quickly. “Une of the protagonists of my film, had woken up. Talking to her, she could listen to me, she could hear me and respond to a few words and she told her father that she recognized my voice“Says Dea Gjinovci. According to her, such a level of consciousness in these children reveals a disturbing dimension of this syndrome:”They are almost locked in their bodies and their brains continue to function, they continue to think and know that around them there is their family, there are friends, there are acquaintances but they can no longer communicate with them“, concludes the director.
The film Réveil sur Mars will be broadcast this Wednesday at 11:55 pm on France 2.