A Syrian refugee influencer has left Denmark to avoid having her children taught about gender transitions.
Salma Naddaf fled her wartorn home nation in 2014 amid a brutal civil war, landing in Denmark.
There, she has gained millions of followers on social media documenting her life as a refugee.
But this week, the 36-year-old announced she had left the Scandinavian country because it had made gender transitions ‘part of education’, something that she said didn’t reflect her values.
She said it was the ‘hardest decision’ she had ever made, but was ‘absolutely convinced that my children shouldn’t grow up in a place where neither the customs nor the traditions are like ours’.
Salma told her three million TikTok followers that she made the decision after seeing ‘the Pride flag raised, fluttering at my children’s school, and when gender transition became not just a personal freedom. It became part of education and daily life’.
She added: ‘Some may see it as freedom but for me, I couldn’t accept that this was the right environment for my children’s healthy development’.
Denmark is one of the most progressive countries in the world for LGBT rights.
Salma Naddaf (pictured, right) fled her wartorn home nation in 2014 amid a brutal civil war
Having decriminalised homosexuality in 1933, it adopted a ‘self-ID’ law in 2014, allowing Danes to change their gender following a six-month waiting period.
Despite its progressive stance on LGBT rights, the country has adopted more of a hardline stance on asylum seekers and immigration more broadly.
In 2021, it was the first European nation to revoke residence permits for Syrian refugees, arguing that parts of Syria were safe to return to.
And since the fall of the Assad regime, the country has offered £24,000 for people to return to Syria, with an additional £5,900 per child.
Salma’s family would receive an estimated £66,000 to go back to Syria, though it isn’t clear if she applied for the fund.
The nation is still reeling from being under the boot of the Assads for several decades.
Syria’s president will discuss issues including lifting remaining sanctions, reconstruction and counter-terrorism when he becomes the country’s first leader to pay an official visit to Washington later this month, the foreign minister said on Sunday.
Ahmed al-Sharaa is expected in the US capital in early November, Syria’s top diplomat Asaad al-Shaibani told a panel at the Manama Dialogue in Bahrain.
The 36-year-old announced she had left the Scandinavian country had made gender transitions ‘part of education’
Denmark is one of the most progressive countries in the world for LGBT rights
‘This visit is certainly historic,’ he said.
‘Many topics will be discussed, starting with the lifting of sanctions,’ Shaibani said, adding: ‘Today we are fighting (the Islamic State)… any effort in this regard requires international support.’
Discussions will also revolve around reconstruction after more than a decade of war, he said.
The foreign ministry in Damascus confirmed the trip would be the first ever visit to the White House by a Syrian president.
On Saturday, US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack said Sharaa was heading to Washington ‘hopefully’ to sign an agreement to join the international US-led alliance against the Islamic State (IS).
Though it will be Sharaa’s first visit to Washington, it will be his second to the US after a landmark UN trip in September, where the former jihadist became the first Syrian president in decades to address the UN General Assembly in New York.
In May, the interim leader, whose Islamist forces ousted longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad late last year, met US President Donald Trump for the first time in Riyadh during a historic visit that led to the US leader vowing to lift economic sanctions on Syria.
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Refugee returns to Syria from Denmark to avoid having her children taught about gender transition