Stockholm city council commissioned a study based on a survey of 2.300 students from Eritrea, Somalia, Middle East, North Africa as well as South East Asia.

Most of the students live in the poorer suburbs of Stockholm, which are known for their high number of immigrants. The survey focused on how cultural traditions impact the integration of the teenagers into the Swedish Society.

According to the survey, the findings show that teenagers face restrictions in their upcoming, because of cultural traditions, which in certain cases violate Swedish law.

For example 23% of the females responded, that they are expecting to remain virgin until they get married and that they are not allowed to have a boy friend. Moreover, 16% of females said someone else is deciding who they are going to marry.

Amongst the sample of boys 7% responded they are not allowed to decide who to marry on their own. What makes integration difficult and slows down educational development is that 10% of girls and 4% of boys say that they are limited in their private lives compared to their fellow students.

Most probably the same might apply to many other urban cities in Europe with a high density of people with immigrant background. In many Eritrean families of the first generation girls were treated somehow stricter than their male counterparts.

The more the families appear to be integrated, the less the restrictions due to culture and traditions, especially amongst the Eritreans living in the second or third generation in the West.