The
International Day of the Child
The International Day of the Child is being celebrated for the 49th
year. The objectives are to ensure children their right to childhood and to
develop in the best possible sphere of confidence and safety that we as adults
are able to offer them.
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted twelve years
ago and contains a comprehensive list of general rights for all children in the
world.
In article 3 the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child states:
"In all actions concerning
children, whether undertaken by public or private social welfare institutions,
courts of law, administrative authorities or legislative bodies, the best interests of the child shall be a
primary consideration.
States Parties undertake to ensure the child such protection and care as
is necessary for his or her well-being, taking
into account the rights and duties of his or her parents, legal guardians, or
other individuals legally responsible for him or her, and, to this end, shall
take all appropriate legislative and administrative measures."
Article 5 emphasizes the respect
of the responsibilities, rights and duties of parents or, where applicable, the
members of the extended family or community as provided for by local custom,
legal guardians or other persons legally responsible for the child, to provide,
in a manner consistent with the evolving capacities of the child.
The child’s right to keep its identity is secured in Article 8, and its
right not to be separated from its parents or, if already separated, the right
to continuous contact with its parents, in Article 9.
Applications by a foreign child or his or her parents to enter or leave
a country for the purpose of family reunification shall, according to Article
10, be dealt with in a positive, humane and expeditious manner. Article 12
assures the child who is capable of forming own views, the right to express
those views freely in all matters affecting the child. For this purpose, the
child shall be heard in any judicial and administrative proceedings affecting
it. According to article 16 no child shall be subjected to arbitrary or
unlawful interference with his or her privacy, family, home or correspondence.
The right of the child to be protected from economic exploitation is ensured in
Article 32.
The statutes of the Convention oblige the State that are signatories and
that have ratified the Convention. Sweden and the Nordic countries were among
the first countries to sign and ratify the Convention on the Rights of the
Child. Regardless of this, several thousands of children in the Nordic
countries (admired by many as being in the frontline when it comes to
children's rights) may experience that the social bureaucracy and
administrative courts have deprived them of all these rights ensured to them by
the UN Convention and the European Convention. Instead of acting in the best
interest of the child the authorities have interpreted these Conventions in a
bureaucratic and child hostile way, furthermore fuelled by a positivist
conception of justice, (i e the view that everything is relative and that there
are no fixed values or laws and that the justice system first of all is
political, not judicial).
As a consequence, children are being subjected to unnecessary intrusion
in their privacy and family life. These children suffer real abuse initiated by
the incompetence and lust of power of social workers as well as abuse by the
unknowing or "system serving" judges in the administrative courts. On top of this come the well-paid and
calculating foster parents - (in February 2002 the media exposed a case where
the municipality of Nybro had placed a mentally retarded youngster in a foster
home in Sävsjö at the cost of 10 000 SEK i. e $1000 per day or 3.65 million SEK
per year) - who often subject their foster children to physical, mental and
sexual abuse in the foster homes.
Quite a few children are subject to concealed adoptions, i.e. the
surrender of infants to childless couples who even get paid for the pleasure of
having children at the same time as every effort is made to shield or isolate
these children from their natural sphere of parents and relatives.
In an article in the Gothenburg Post of
"Their social background was mostly a real catastrophe and several
of them had repeatedly been pushed around between their natural parents and
foster parents. One of the youngsters had experienced 18 foster homes. How can
the society continue placing children into foster homes when these fail time
after time? It is irrational."
The General Director of the National Board of Health and Welfare,
Kerstin Wigzell, and the Minister of Social Affairs, Lars Engqvist, have on
several occasions, levelled serious criticism against the social services and
expressed deep concern for the children and youngsters who come in contact with
the system. However, so far, there are no changes in sight.
In a radio interview on November 17, 2001, the Minister of Social
Affairs, Lars Engqvist, said inter alia the following: "Even if 20 % of the children that are taken
into care have no parents (...) I know that many are being placed despite the
fact that there should be alternatives available so that they can remain in
their homes, that support could be given to the family, to mother or father or
to the children, in accordance with the Social Services Act. That is so simple
that one really must fight to make the municipality invest money to achieve the
same."
Earlier this year an investigation into child poverty in
On several occasions European Court of Human Rights has found
But the Nordic system of forcible abduction of children remains
unchanged. The children, their parents and relatives, who are victims of the
child protection agencies/social services, are subjected to extreme suffering
and violations that are tantamount to torture. Such treatment of children is
unworthy of the Nordic welfare states that like to classify themselves as
civilised, democratic societies under the rule of law.
Therefore, let the International Day of the Child, October 7, 2002, mark
the starting point for a better respect for the basic Human Rights of the
children in the Nordic welfare states and that of ALL children.
Ruby Harrold-Claesson
Attorney-at-law
President of the NCHR