The impact of focusing events: the case of children's rights protection reform

The main aim of the thesis is to accomplish an empirical study that will explore and explain what were the main factors and how they stimulated, and encouraged the politicians to pay attention to the protection of Children's rights after the outbreak of violence in Kėdainiai city in 2017, now known as Matukas tragedy. Immediately after this tragic incident, Parliament of the Republic of Lithuania decided to organize an extraordinary session. In this sitting the government unanimously agreed to initiate Lithuania‘s Children's rights protection reform which implemented a ban of any type of physical punishment, and re-defined what is to be considered as an act of violence against children. It is important to emphasize that despite the numerous amount of cases that reported children brutally abused or even killed there were no changes made. Moreover, the main tasks were raised. Firstly, to analyze and introduce focusing events and agenda – setting conceptions that are described in academic literature. Based on that, to prove that Matukas tragedy is a focusing event. Secondly, to analyze and identify what were the main factors and how they may have influenced the inclusion of Fundamentals of Protection of the Rights of the Child after the Matukas tragedy. Thirdly, o perform in-depth and semi-structured interviews that aim to discover what and explain how Matukas tragedy may have influenced the reform. And lastly, to analyze the data and provide research findings and essential insights