Denmark's Western High Court has upheld a three-year prison sentence for a 57-year-old man convicted of sending his three daughters on a re-education trip to Somalia, the prosecution authority said in a press release, according to DR.
The sentence is the same one the Aarhus court handed down earlier this year, Berlingske reported. The three girls, who were 7, 12 and 14 at the time, were sent to Somalia by their father in the summer of 2022, according to Ritzau.
During the stay, the girls were confined, were forbidden from speaking Danish and were forced to attend Quran school. The two eldest were subjected to violence every day or every other day, including being beaten and whipped with a water hose, a cable and a broom.
By forcing his daughters to stay in Somalia under those conditions, the high court found that the man endangered their health and development. He was also convicted of threatening the eldest daughter and of subjecting two of the daughters to violence of a particularly crude, brutal or dangerous character.
The Aarhus case is one of the few that has led to a verdict since it became illegal to send children on stays abroad that endanger their health and development. Since 2019, there has been an average of one case a year involving re-education trips, according to a report published earlier this year by the research centre VIVE.