About society's responsibility for the children : A study about the child in Swedish legal process based on international law

Every year tens of thousands of children and adolescents come in contact with different parts of the justice system in Sweden, as witnesses, victims and suspects. This essay aims at critically examine children’s rights in legal proceedings based on European union legislation and the United nations convention on the rights of the child. Political problems are increasingly being defined at the European level of cooperation and decisions regarding Sweden’s future are more often being made by the EU. In June of 2018, Sweden’s parliament voted for the convention on the rights of the child to become law. This analysis will use systematic literature searches to collect the material and two theories about children’s participation and their possibility to act independently will be applied. The study concludes that Sweden’s work with children in legal proceedings fall short in certain regards while they follow EU: s and UN: s laws and opinions in others. What seems to be largely lacking is commitment and knowledge regarding children’s needs.