The United Nation’s definition of honour based violence (HRV) in 1999 defines women’s exposure of violence related to honour. In Sweden, HRV was regarded as a social problem in the 1990’s, when women were murdered by their close family members. Loss of honour was explained as a reason for the killings. Ever since the beginning of debate in Swedish media, science has noticed the complexity of HRV.   The aim of this study was to examine how Swedish social services and administrative courts constructed honour based violence (HRV) when law of mandatory care of minors is used in court cases. The lawsuits regarded both females and males, in the ages of 10-17 years old. We used a document analysis of thirteen court cases from 2016 regarding 2§ Law of mandatory care of minors (LVU), which is a paragraph of deficiencies in care of youths. We used the keyword Honour related violence when searching for court cases. We could determine that physical violence is constructed as legal issues when it’s explained in detail, fragmented and when the minor was regarded as believable to the administrative court. Psychological violence included the involvement of threats, threats of physical violence and threats of forced marriages, and was all seen as an integrated view on violence. Honour was constructed as an isolation of the youths, limiting their social and leisure time and the children were controlled by their guardians. According to social services and administrative courts, the control was not seen as age appropriate.

The purpose of this thesis was to achieve a deeper knowledge of the dilemma whichcan arise during a social welfare workers judgement of a reunion according to whatis best for the child in relation to a child’s right to their biological parents. Thisbachelor thesis was based on three research questions: What influences a socialwelfare workers judgement of a reunion according to what is best for the child, aswell as children’s right to their biological parents? How does a social welfare workerperceive its leeway during a judgement concerning reunion family reunion? How doesa social welfare worker perceive their authority to interpret according to their leeway?A qualitative study has been used to gain a deeper knowledge according to a socialwelfare workers experience. A hermeneutic approach has been used to answer thepurpose of our bachelor thesis and has contributed to a wider perspective of our study.The focus was to understand the dilemma through evaluating and interpretation. Sixsocial welfare workers participated in the following vignette survey, which werecomplemented with semi-structured questions. The participants have answeredregarding their experience concerning their leeway and authority to interpret the lawaccording to what is best for the child and their entitlement to their biological parents.This bachelor thesis research results show that social welfare workers did possessleeway which implies empowerment to interpret legislation, concepts and varioussituations. This can be seen as a prerequisite for correct decisions to be made duringdaily work. Although, it can also act as a risk since clients may receive differentconclusions depending on the social welfare worker. Furthermore, a conclusion of thethesis is that different judgements are made, even though the contributed informationwas identical. The explanation to these different assessments may relate to the socialwelfare workers leeway and authority to interpret the law, which makes investigatingchildren’s right to their parents and what is best for them even more complex.