Barns rättigheter - en självklarhet?

Abstract

Numerous studies have showed that Swedish municipalities are responsible for several of the activities that concern children and their rights, e.g. school and health care. Furthermore, the Convention of the Rights of the Child is an international agreement that Sweden has signed and ratified which also implies the obligations that Swedish municipalities have. The purpose of this study is to investigate and compare, from a social justice perspective, how children’s rights are being emphasized and how children’s opinions are being taken into consideration at the municipality level in Sweden. I will argue that a just society demands that human rights are being respected. This will be done through a social justice perspective where social justice depends on how the society is giving its citizens tools to develop and use their abilities and also to have a say in what they do. However, several structural injustices that restrict children from accessing their rights surface in the municipalities and their responsibility for these are analyzed through the social connection model of responsibility. The information in this study is gathered through interviews, policy documents and a questionnaire. The main finding concerns that children’s rights are in general being overlooked even if their perspective, terms and just treatments are somehow considered the human rights language is not visible. In addition, it is shown that knowledge, attitude and collaboration are important factors when emphasizing children’s rights at the municipality level. Also having someone in charge of coordinating children’s rights and having a children’s rights policy are useful tools. In general, municipalities lack tools for taking children’s opinions into consideration.