Saga - 2004, Page 93

Stjórnartíðindi fyrir Ísland 1905, 1927, 1932 og 1935.
Svavar Gests, Hugsað upphátt: æviminningar ([Reykjavík], 1992).
Sverrir Kristjánsson og Tómas Guðmundsson, Horfin tíð. Íslenzkir örlagaþættir
(Reykjavík, 1967).
Abstract
T H E D E S T I T U T I O N A N D D I S S O L U T I O N O F FA M I L I E S
A study of foster children in Reykjavik, 1901–1940
This article discusses how children in Reykjavik between 1901 and 1940 were
taken away from their families and accommodated outside the homes of their
parents. A close examination of documents on poverty in Reykjavik during that
period reveals that poverty was the primary reason for children being transferred
to foster care. In that period, poverty might have numerous causes, since welfare
programmes had scarcely begun; in fact, the first welfare programmes were not
established in Iceland until 1936.
Single mothers particularly risked losing their children into foster care, as
there was little support for such mothers in society. Not only were they looked
down upon, but social services hardly existed. It is likewise interesting to note
where new homes were found for the children: there was a concerted effort to
send them to rural areas, due to a widespread opinion that the country was
healthier for children than corrupt urban life. Furthermore, rural farmers could
utilise the labour of children in their care, and that may have been an additional
reason for more foster children being settled in the country than in towns.
Another aspect is that children were often placed with poor families. This is
astonishing, in that children taken away from their own parents because of
poverty were then placed with others perhaps no better off. Other circumstances
leading to foster care were theft and mischief, as well as domestic maltreatment.
Examination of the situation of foster children in Reykjavik during the above-
mentioned period shows how primitive the City of Reykjavik’s approach to these
matters remained well into the twentieth century. The issue of foster care was
covered by the act on poverty until 1932, when the first child protection act was
established in Iceland, exhibiting a great deal more humanity and consideration
regarding foster children than had previously been the case.
Ö R B I R G Ð O G U P P L A U S N F J Ö L S K Y L D N A 93
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