Concern for children’s safety and protection has become a global issue and has evoked considerable debate since the publication of the United Nations’ widely ratified Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) in 1989. A dominant theme within this charter and within the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (1990) is the recognition that children are individuals with rights that need to be respected and protected. More specifically, Article 32 of the UNCRC states that children should be protected from ‘economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child's education, or to be harmful to the child's health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development’. Nigeria has signed and ratified both the UNCRC and the African Charter and has committed itself to ensuring the welfare and protection of its children. This thesis examines children’s work experiences and their interpretations of these against the backdrop of the provisions of the UNCRC and the African charter. The study sets out to explore the meanings of work for itinerant street vending children and young people in Enugu, Nigeria and is based on a combined ethnographic methodology of participant observation and semi-structured interviews with 24 child vendors in marketplaces over a period of six months. It will be argued that contemporary ideas about children’s work are framed by Euro-centric, adult perceptions and definitions of what they think working children are doing, and that the imposition of Western constructions of childhood does not reflect the lived realities of children. Discussions with children revealed, among other things, a contradiction and ambivalence in their understandings of work in relation to vending and an interplay of complex environmental, cultural and poverty factors. In children’s views, taking responsibilities in activities that add positive values to their personal development and to the continued survival of their families was part of their childhood. Whilst street based observations of the markets revealed some fundamental dangers and problems with street vending, especially the reality of physical, social and emotional abuse, these young children have developed robust coping mechanisms and social networks which reflect a blend of definitional adjustments, rationalisation and social bonding and which reveal inadequacies in the enforcement of child protection policies. The tension between these risks and the importance of vending in the lives of the children is discussed. The role and type of work are further examined against dominant cultural values and socio economic realities in Nigeria in an attempt to fully explain the phenomenon of children’s work in this milieu. This study concludes that children’s participation in vending, while at times both ‘hazardous’ and ‘harmful’, is a fact of life and a way of life for children growing up in Nigeria, an integral part of their childhood activity, and a realistic preparation for their future lives and careers. It is argued that this raises important challenges not only to the children’s rights agenda, but also to social welfare agencies which seek to provide support to children and young people in developing countries such as Nigeria.

Syftet med studien var att undersöka hur stor andel barn mellan 10–14 år som tydligt fått komma till tals samt hur deras utsagor uttrycks i de skriftliga domsluten vid överklagande av LVU till kammarrätten. En kategorisering av alla domslut från utvald kammarrätt gjordes för att sedan välja ut åtta av domsluten att granska kvalitativt utifrån Harts delaktighetsstege och barndomssociologi. Resultatet visade att barn i mindre än hälften av domsluten tydligt fått komma till tals och att barnets åsikt uttrycks i olika stor utsträckning i de skriftliga domsluten, dock framkommer inte barnets åsikter i avsnittet skäl för beslut i domslutet. Barn anses ofta i förhållande till vuxna inte vara tillräckligt mogna vilket kan medför att de inte får vara aktiva aktörer och att deras handlingsutrymme begränsas. Vuxna som arbetar med barn måste vara medvetna om den komplexitet som råder mellan barnets rätt till delaktighet och barnets bästa. / The aim of this study was to examine the proportion of children between ages 10-14 who clearly got to express themselves and how their views were expressed in written documents when appealing LVU to kammarrätten. A categorization of all judgments from a court were made, the eight were selected to examine qualitatively supported by Hart's ladder of participation and childhood sociology. The result showed that children in less than half of the judgements clearly got to express themselves and that the child's words were noted to varying degrees, however, in the section reasons for decision the child’s views were not included. Children are often not considered sufficiently mature in relation to adults, which means that they may not be active actors and that their room for maneuver is restricted. Adults working with children must be aware of the complexity between the child's right to participation and the child’s best interests.

A number of countries including Sweden have developed children’s helplines as free and anonymous counseling services for children and youth. The aim of this study was to deepen knowledge about how the problems of children and youth are represented and constructed in Sweden’s BRIS (Children’s Rights in Society) Children’s Helpline, telephone support between the years 1996 and 1998. The work was social constructivistic, examining how helpline responders understand and interpret information received during support calls. The concept of “the concern” is highlighted as a point of study of problem constructions within micro-counselling. The empirical material consisted primarily of interviews with persons who worked at BRIS either as employed ombudspersons or as volunteer telephone responders. Eleven ombudspersons replied to questions about the Children’s Helpline and how support services are organized. Thirty eight interviews were carried out with helpline responders at two separate occasions during the study period. Fifteen of these interviews provided material for an in depth investigation of responders preconceptions of children and youth’s everyday life, as well as the themes of gender, problematic relationships and assault as well as the strategies that responders used in their supportive calls. Statistical information was collected from BRIS reports. Fifteen completed questionnaires from support calls were included in this study. Analytical processes resulted in the development of the two theoretical concepts of familiarity and micro-understanding. General representations of children and youth situations are put forth via descriptions of misery. The responders’ concepts of children’s everyday life appear fragmentary because of the limited information available about the caller. Gender issues are constructed around questions of feminity and sexuality. The theme of assault contains calls from both girls and boys. Boys’ calls about assault are constructed around bullying and physical assault. Girls’ call are also constructed around violence but also include sexual abuse and molestation. This study contributes to the growing field of knowledge about the problem images of children and youth that emanate from support calls made to telephone helplines.

The aim of this study is to highlight problems regarding the status of children in determining the granting of residence permits. Central to the study are the rules contained in the Swedish Aliens Act (2005:716) about hearing children in the course of proceedings and the child’s best interests. The rules are based on Articles 3 and 12 respectively, in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). They were introduced into the Swedish legislation in 1997, after an intense debate questioning whether Sweden was meeting its obligations under the Convention. The application in aliens matters has, however, continued to be criticized after the revision of 1997, especially in matters concerning children. In 2006 a new Aliens Act came into force, involving a shift in the handling of such matters from administrative authorities and the Government to a system where appeals are tried in administrative courts. The legislation also involves comprehensive changes concerning the material legislation. The question has been raised, however, as to whether these changes have had any vital impact concerning the general construction of the material regulation. The apparent gap between the legislator’s intentions and the application of the law raises questions about the limitations of law and how the spirit and intentions of the CRC have been implemented in the Aliens Act, and, in view of this, the limits of law. The study involves an analysis of the fundamental premises that the legislation and application rest on, the general provisions of the proceedings and the technical formulation and also the material content of these rules. There is also an analysis of the impact and function of the legislation in practical applications. The conclusion is that the legislation allows extensive scope for assessing the circumstances in each case. This is the case, particularly in matters concerning children. Nevertheless, in practical applications, children often become irrelevant; children are simply not the real focus of the laws that affect them. Key words: Children’s rights, residence permit, asylum, immigration, equality, feminist perspectives. Eva Nilsson, Juridiska institutionen, Umeå universitet, 901 87 Umeå.

This essay discusses children’s rights and control and system of rules in HVB-homes that provide treatment for adolescences with drug abuse prob­lems or criminal behavior. The results of this study are based on interviews with four persons working in managerial positions on different HVB-homes and shows the difficulties of having a children’s rights perspective in a con­text where a higher level of control is necessary to protect the best interest of the child. The study suggests that the question of balance between children’s right and the need for controlling system of rules needs to be fur­ther dis­cussed to improve, and as far as possible guarantee that these adoles­cence receive best possible care and do not suffer unfair restrictions on liber­ties.

Using a Millian framework, this thesis examines whether or not children are victims of child abuse when they are inculcated with racist belief systems. The conclusion is that children are not harmed and so not the victims of child abuse, but instead are badly parented.

The purpose of this study was to examine children's participation in court proceedings on supervised visitation and to analyse the descriptions of children in court verdicts. Eleven verdicts concerning supervised visitation resolved in 2014 were collected from two district courts in Stockholm County and studied with a qualitative textual analysis. The material was analysed with participation levels influenced by the ladder of participation for children developed by Roger Hart and with the theory of sociology of childhood. Our findings showed that children's opinions were mentioned in eight of the verdicts. In four verdicts the children's will influenced the courts decisions. The children’s will was in none of the verdicts determinant for the outcome. The children's level of participation had no correlation with their age. The children were often described as having universal needs rather than individual needs. The will of the children was in some verdicts invalidated by the court because of their age and their perceived lack of ability to understand what's best for them in the future. Our conclusions are that the court rarely described the children as independent actors or took the children's wishes into account.

Despite Senegal’s ratifications of the UN Conventions CRC and the CEDAW, a noticeable discrepancy regarding secondary school attendance due to the pupil’s sex has been recognized in enrolment and fulfilment ratios. (www.unicef.org, 2011a) The main issue to be examined in this thesis was the teacher-students’ knowledge of girls’ right to education and their attitudes concerning the difference in pupils participating in secondary schools based on the pupil’s sex and how the matter is being addressed amongst teachers. Qualitative interviews were carried out amongst teacher-students at University of Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar. We reflected upon the collected material mainly through theories of feminism and social constructivism, and moreover briefly through post-colonialism and structural functionalism, as well as in relation to previous research. We found that the respondents lacked deeper juridical knowledge concerning right to education. Overall the respondents expressed an ambiguity in their gender awareness, and their perception of girls’ education in relation to cultural traditions. The main obstacles for girls schooling were gender cultural traditions and socio-economic factors.

Tyrimo tikslas yra aptarti vaiko teisių galimus pažeidimus ir prevenciją internetiniuose socialiniuose tinkluose. Magistro darbe analizuojamas vaiko teisių pažeidimų internetiniuose socialiniuose tinkluose prevencijos organizavimas ir įgyvendinimas gimnazijoje, siekiant išsiaiškinti esamą situaciją, kad būtų imtasi konkrečių veiksmų plano. Tyrimas buvo organizuojamas 2012 metų gruodžio 17-21 dienomis. Anketinės apklausos metodu ištirti 170 gimnazijos I ir II klasės mokiniai (iš jų 88 pirmokai ir 82 antrokai) bei 35 pedagogai ir kiti gimnazijos darbuotojai, dirbantys šioje gimnazijoje. Tyrimo rezultatai parodė, jog gimnazistai suvokia internetinių socialinių tinklų grėsmes, dažnai su jomis susiduria pažeisdami savo teises. Šios grėsmės internete juos neramina, o susidūrę su jomis jie linkę apie tai niekam nepasakoti. Mokiniai jaučiasi turį pakankamai žinių ir įgūdžių bendravimui internete, gebėjimų siekiant užtikrinti saugų darbą internete. Atlikta tyrimų rezultatų analizė atskleidė šiuos vaiko teisių pažeidimų internetiniuose socialiniuose tinkluose prevencijos gimnazijoje organizavimo ypatumus: gimnazijoje vis dėlto nepakankamai vykdoma įtaigi prevencinė veikla, gimnazijos bendruomenė šviesdama mokinius apie jų saugų darbą internete apsiribojama gimnazistų paviršutinišku informavimu ir švietimu, ne visi pedagogai šviečia ir informuoja mokinius apie jų saugų darbą internete. Aktyviausiai prevenciją vykdo dalykų pedagogai, integruotų pamokų ir klasės auklėtojai organizuotų... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Research objective is to review violations of children’s rights in online social networks. In MA thesis there is being analysed the prevention management and implementation of violations of children‘s rights in gymnasium having the aim to clarify a present situation in order the efficient action plan to be created. The research was conducted 17-21 December in 2012. Using the method of questionnaire survey there were interviewed 170 gymnasium‘s first and second graders (out of them 88 first graders and 82 second graders), 35 teachers and other employees who work in this gymnasium. Research outcome showed that gymnasium students realise threats of social networks and face them violating their rights. These threats on the Internet make them feel anxious and while facing them they are tend not to talk to anybody. Students feel quite confident in having knowledge and skills to communicate on the Internet and abilities to ensure safe work online. The analysis of research findings revealed particularities of prevention management in the gymnasium concerning violations of children‘s rights in social networks: impellent prevention activity is not sufficient enough in the gymnasium; the gymnasium community educating students about their safe work online narrow to shallow spreading of information and education; not all teaching staff educate and inform students about their safe work online. The most active prevention is organised by subjects’ teachers during integrative lessons and... [to full text]

This thesis provides a qualitative research of asylum seeking of unaccompanied children in Sweden. Children who find themselves traveling borders without company of a family member are in a very vulnerable position. In this thesis, the experience of unaccompanied children undergoing an asylum process in the Swedish jurisdiction is presented and the consequences of this process are also presented. With the creation of territorial boundaries embodied with an institution of state sovereignty, unaccompanied children finds themselves in a position of statelessness which produces a situation of rightlessness as they find themselves outside their own territories. This research suggests that, the territorial system provides great examples of unaccompanied children in a situation of statelessness even when they find themselves inside a new community. Even in this new state they do not automatically gain access to the community, instead through migration system, they must undergo investigations and procedures to prove that they have the rights to belong to that current community, a procedure that contributes to stress and other negative factors to the health of these children. From the findings of the interviews with unaccompanied children undergoing the process of seeking asylum and also unaccompanied children in hiding, it is seen that the asylum seeking process in the condition of unaccompanied children is characterized by the paradoxical system of national states, territorialism, totalitarianism, state sovereignty and an effort of maintaining human rights. The suggestion is that, the paradigm of territorialism and state sovereignty deprives unaccompanied children from what one in the Arendtian sense would call the right to have rights. As their journey to a new community starts off as a position of statelessness and with a 50% chance of returning back to that position. Their position slowly emerges from unaccompanied children, to a stateless adultescence and lastly to a forgotten undocumented adult.