Originally the aim of this study was the exploration of the current situation of the right to education for refugee children in Burundi and Rwanda being the two countries with the highest number of refugees in Africa. However because of lack of information about the refugee situation in Rwanda, this study is limited to analysis of the situation in Burundi. This study then analyses the state of implementation of the international and national legal instrument by the government of Burundi and suggest ways of implementing the existing international and national legal framework. / Thesis (LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa)) -- University of Pretoria, 2007. / Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Law University of Pretoria, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Masters of Law (LLM in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa). Prepared under the supervision of Ass. Prof. Frederick Juuko, of the Faculty of Law, Makerere University Kampala, Uganda / http://www.chr.up.ac.za/ / Centre for Human Rights / LLM

The purpose of this study is to examine how unaccompanied refugee children living in a care-institution are being prepared for a independent life in Sweden. The study wish to pay attention to how the treatment assistants perceice their work with these children. To create a deeper understanding from the staff's perspective, the study is also focusing on their personal experiences of working with the children. To analyze the results, we have using the theoretical perspectives empowerment and systems theory, so called "systemteorin". The results showed that the treatment assistants are in first place working to build a secure and reliable relationship with the unaccompanied refugee children. The results also show that the staff at the care-institution serves as "extra parents" for the children seeing that they come to Sweden without their biological parents. This also means that the staff are teaching the children everyday skills such as cooking and how to manage an economy, and how the swedish society is formed.

This study researches how communication provided by supervisors working in homes for unaccompanied refugee children about gender equality, sex and sexuality should be conducted and executed for children acclimating to Sweden. This studied topic was founded in the desire expressed by RFSU to demand sexual education for unaccompanied refugee children coming to Sweden. This desire was expressed after unaccompanied refugee boys were discovered to have sexually abused and harassed a number of girls during a youth festival in Stockholm. RFSU, and the president for the Unaccompanied Children’s Union in Sweden, brought to the attention that the cultural backgrounds URC commonly have differ from the Swedish culture concerning gender equality and sexuality. Thus, the issue with communication about gender equality, sex and sexuality intended for unaccompanied refugee children is that it needs to be befitting and susceptible to them according to their usual and previous context.  The method used in this study was to implement a qualitative research method of phenomenological nature. Data were mainly accrued through a questionnaire that was answered by supervisors that currently work with unaccompanied refugee children. These answers provided with an understanding, together with the compiled frame of reference, of how to befittingly and susceptibly communicate about gender equality, sex and sexuality with unaccompanied refugee children acclimating to Sweden. Keep in mind, not all unaccompanied refugee children who come to Sweden are in fact refugees. However, to distinguish these children who come from other countries from other children in general, the choice was made to continue calling them unaccompanied refugee children throughout this study.    The conclusions drawn from the result of this study ended up being four. The first is that not all unaccompanied refugee children are alike, and can therefore not be seen as one identical target group. The second is that unaccompanied refugee children’s previous cultural and religious contexts, with their previous experiences about gender equality, sex and sexuality, need to be considered, along with the suitability of how to execute such information. The third conclusion is to naturally, and clearly, discuss and debate on a regular basis with a suitable supervisor. The fourth is that media, for instance pornography, can provide misguided and biased information. The practical recommendations that these conclusions resulted in are also four, and are as follows; 1) to create multiple communication materials as to satisfy most children’s needs and attitudes, 2) to learn about URC’s previous cultural and religious contexts, and their previous experiences, and have different suitable information sessions based on the needed level of privacy, 3) to discuss and debate gender equality, sex and sexuality on a regular basis in a natural setting through a suitable supervisor, and 4) to include media, especially pornography, when discussing and debating about gender equality, sex and sexuality.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to get a better understanding how professionals working with unaccompanied refugee children perceive and reflect on their emotions evoked by their work and on their preparedness to handle them. Therefore, I chose to investigate how the sample of professional recognised, expressed and managed their emotions at work; what role did support and self-reflection play in exploring emotions; how the professionals saw the role of emotions in their work with unaccompanied refugee children; and how the participants described their preparedness to handle their emotions from the social work education. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine professionals working directly with unaccompanied refugee children. The findings indicated a lack of consistency in the views; where some said emotions could be utilised as a tool in social work, others viewed that expressing emotions might be seen unprofessional. Self-reflection and support of the colleagues and the counsellor in handling emotions were valued by the participants; it was seen to be helpful in working on emotions and becoming a better professional. Another emerging theme was the lack of discussion about emotions in social work education.

The thesis provides an ethnographic study of the experiences of lone asylum seekers who are provided local authority care in the London Borough of Hillingdon. The research builds on sixteen months’ ethnographic fieldwork between April 2006 and September 2007, examining how the young people adapted to their changing and adverse circumstances and how welfare institutions in the United Kingdom responded to their situations. The young refugees in this research created personal relations of patronage in bureaucratic organisations, quickly formed networks and obtained goods by non-formal routes. They created space for play and spiritual growth, and maintained a position of obliviousness towards much of the events and logistics involved in leaving the DRC and seeking asylum in Europe. It was through these activities that personal agency of the young people emerged. However, the young people were not occupying positions of power. Their ‘agency’ was restricted and confined within social and political structures imposed on them. I argue that the separation of welfare services to religious life was for research subjects an arbitrary distinction. They had come from a Christian fundamentalist (Pentecostal) interpretation of the world in Kinshasa. God and evil were seen as omnipresent and omnipotent, and a true Christian (mukristu ya solo, a Christian of the soul), must be vigilant and pray all the time to be at one with the divine power. The young Congolese viewed their lives within such a theological ‘model’ and fitted all other seemingly ‘competing’ discourses and practices within it. As the young people negotiated their new lives in a new country, they adopted their coping strategies in ways that helped them benefit from the English welfare system and the Pentecostal faith respectively.

<p>Subject: The Teacher Training Programme, Degree Project in Educational Sciences</p><p>Södertörn University College</p><p>Autumn Term, 2006</p><p>This study titled, Those who feel worst, need help to feel better, is a Degree Project in Educational Sciences for the Teacher Training Programme at Södertörn University College. The purpose of this study is to find out how school introduction for newly arrived refugee children is organized in two schools, considering the fact that many refugee children can suffer from PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The study is qualitative, based on interviews with principals, teachers and students in one junior high school and one high school. The study also reviews literature and research on how to work with children who suffer from PTSD. The results show that lack of national policy for the school introduction and education of refugee children, leads to the fact that school introduction can vary from school to school. The lack of co-operation between the different units around the refugee child makes the school introduction much more difficult than it needs to be. But this is also a matter of resources, and how they are divided. Thus, many of the children in this study seemed to be happy with their time in the preparatory class. The results also show that problems occurred when the children started in their new class, where they had difficulties in catching up with their new classmates.</p>

Subject: The Teacher Training Programme, Degree Project in Educational Sciences Södertörn University College Autumn Term, 2006 This study titled, Those who feel worst, need help to feel better, is a Degree Project in Educational Sciences for the Teacher Training Programme at Södertörn University College. The purpose of this study is to find out how school introduction for newly arrived refugee children is organized in two schools, considering the fact that many refugee children can suffer from PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The study is qualitative, based on interviews with principals, teachers and students in one junior high school and one high school. The study also reviews literature and research on how to work with children who suffer from PTSD. The results show that lack of national policy for the school introduction and education of refugee children, leads to the fact that school introduction can vary from school to school. The lack of co-operation between the different units around the refugee child makes the school introduction much more difficult than it needs to be. But this is also a matter of resources, and how they are divided. Thus, many of the children in this study seemed to be happy with their time in the preparatory class. The results also show that problems occurred when the children started in their new class, where they had difficulties in catching up with their new classmates.

This thesis in sociology was based on a qualitative research strategy. Its intention was to analyze how a specific county in the middle of Sweden work to make the integration process of the unaccompanied refugee youths, with a Swedish residence permit, as good as possible, the other intention was to find out the possible following of this work. Interviews were done and statistics were found, this later on became analyzed together with the theories. The basic theories were integration and class theory. The mainly finding in this study was that that the integration of the unaccompanied refugee children leads them into a lower society class of the Swedish community. This since these youth are more of less forced to follow some steps in the education, which for many of them will lead to that they are too old to apply to the national gymnasium in Sweden, and therefore they only get education though the introduction program, which is not leading to a graduation from the gymnasium. Because of this they are not getting the same chances to succeed with the same kind of education as youth on other programs in the Swedish gymnasium.

The purpose of this study is to decipher the means by which the identities of particular people, specifically unaccompanied and separated child asylum-seekers, are socially constructed as risk. Theorized here as "risk identity", this has occurred within a global context increasingly preoccupied with security. Racialized and imbued with ideological notions of citizenship, this preoccupation and the anxieties contained within it, are effectively yet unduly transferred onto individuals, who for a variety of reasons not innately related to security, are seen as undesirable. The "risk identity" classification becomes the means by Which their exclusion is legitimized and perpetuated. The increased movement of unaccompanied and separated children across international borders has occurred within this global context. Positioned largely in opposition to citizens of the industrialized west, unaccompanied and separated children seeking asylum in Canada are constructed as risk in myriad ways. Based on 13 interviews, 9 with stakeholders and 4 with youth, this study highlights four interconnected categories of risk, which serve to construct unaccompanied and separated minors as risk. These are anti-refugee discourse, anti-youth discourse, as it relates to juvenile justice discourse, prejudicial attitudes and the fear of difference, and securitization discourse.

Abstract The purpose of our study is to reach an understanding of the situation of unaccompanied refugee minors in school. Thus the study aims to investigate what sort of possibilities and limits they encounter when going through their school education. We have chosen a qualitative method and conducted interviews with four persons between the ages of 18 and 21 years. The result of the study shows that unaccompanied refugee minors experience numerous limitations and lesser possibilities than other students, which prevents their educational and social development. The limitations partly depend on the school personnels lack of knowledge about this target group, and partly on the difficulty of dealing with a new culture which is different from the students original culture.  An important conclusion that our study has shown is that the educational system has a great impact on how well the students manage to function in the new society later on.  Therefore it is of great importance that the teachers have access to competence development , since this is of substantial importance for the  unaccompanied refugee minors development and socialization. / Syftet med vår studie är att undersöka ensamkommande flyktingbarns situation i skolan, främst med avseende på de begränsningar och eventuella hinder som barnen möter under skolgången.  Det insamlade datamaterialet har analyserats med hjälp av en tematisk tolkande ansats, där framförallt begreppet socialisation varit vägledande i tolkningsprocessen. Resultatet visar att ensamkommande flyktingbarn upplever många begränsningar och färre möjligheter i skolan. Detta försvårar deras möjligheter till kunskapsutveckling och socialisation. De hinder som ensamkommande flyktingbarn brottas med kan i relation till en övergripande nivå ses som en konsekvens av omfattande begränsningar inom skolan som institution. Inom den svenska skolan råder brist på resurser av varierande slag. Det saknas kunskap och insyn i ensamkommande barns livssituationer, vilket i sin tur begränsar elevernas förutsättningar att smälta in i och socialiseras i de nya förhållandena. En viktig slutsats i vår studie är att skolan har stor påverkan på hur eleverna klarar sig senare i livet i det nya samhället. Det är således av stor vikt att lärarna har tillgång till kompetensutveckling, eftersom lärares kapacitet i mötet med eleverna i en förlängning får stor betydelse för ensamkommande flyktingbarns lärande och socialisation.