The Children’s Ombudsman in Sweden
Country Update
Swedish children and young people up to the age of 18 have an Ombudsman of
their own, the Children’s Ombudsman, referred to in Swedish as
Barnombudsmannen (BO). This Ombudsman’s main task is to safeguard the rights
and interests of children and young people as laid down in the UN Convention on
the Rights of the Child, the CRC.
An Act of Parliament established the Children’s Ombudsman in 1993. The task
of the Children’s Ombudsman is to monitor issues concerning the rights and
interests of children and young people. The Children’s Ombudsman should pay
particular attention to ensuring that laws and other statutory instruments as
well as their application, fulfil the undertakings made by Sweden under the UN
Convention on the Rights of the Child
The Act Establishing The Office of the Children s Ombudsman, Section 1
The UN Child Convention an important platform
The duties of the Children’s Ombudsman refer essentially to all issues
concerning children and young people. The Ombudsman’s work is founded on the
CRC. As soon as an issue is regulated under the Convention, it comes within the
ambit of the Children’s Ombudsman, but issues falling outside the scope of the
Convention can also be addressed if they involve the rights and areas of
interest that the Children’s Ombudsman monitors. The Office of the Children’s
Ombudsman is an independent non-political body, though this is not to say that
it takes a neutral position. Its task is to promote the rights of children and
young people. This means that the Children’s Ombudsman represents the
interests of a particular group as opposed to individuals in public and civil
society.
CountryUpdate
Activities
As part of its work on Sweden’s national strategy to give effect to the CRC,
the Children’s Ombudsman has compiled a special in-service training programme
concerning the Convention and has set up special reference groups of
municipalities, county councils and national authorities. To this are added
training measures which the Office conducts primarily for the benefit of
decision-makers within national authorities, municipalities and county councils.
This work is based on a dialogue with the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs,
and on co-operation with other agencies, such as NGOs and the National Financial
Management Authority (ESV).
The Ombudsman’s activities have included a further questionnaire survey
(the third in succession) concerning measures taken by municipal authorities to
give effect to the CRC. The survey indicates an improvement on previous years,
with municipalities discussing and implementing the Convention to a greater
extent than before. Many municipalities, however, are still at the introductory
stage of the implementation process. The methods and models devised are often of
an experimental kind. As yet, the effects are mainly discernible at policy
level. The same can be said of the work done by the county councils to give
effect to the Convention. The Office of the Children’s Ombudsman has therefore
begun work on the evaluation and further development of various methods for
giving effect to the Convention at municipal and county council levels.
During the year the Office completed its work of co-ordinating and directing
the information project Time for the CRC, a joint undertaking together with the
NGOs. A report with an evaluation of the project has been handed over to the
Government.
Although many national authorities are aware of the importance of the
Convention, most of them have yet to adopt an active attitude to the Convention
and its intentions. Very few national authorities are implementing the
Convention in a strategic, systematic way. As part of its strategy assignment,
the Office is also engaged in development work together with about ten
experimental authorities, aimed at devising models of child impact analysis .
The Office has also produced an informative publication on the Convention and
its interpretation, entitled nskliga r ttigheter f r barn (Human Rights for
Children), and has completed two handbooks, one for the national government
sector and the other for regional and local government levels, on ways in which
the Convention can be implemented.
In addition, the Office has continued to develop its web site as a means of
communicating best practices for the implementation of the Convention by
national authorities, county councils and municipalities. The Office has also
taken part in twenty or more conferences/seminars concerning implementation of
the Convention at local and regional levels.
International CRC courses have also been organised, in association with the
Swedish International Development Co-operation Agency (Sida), for delegates from
Latin American and Eastern Europe.
Important topics for the Ombudsman in the sector children in exposed
situations have included school health care and pupil welfare and the question
of sexual offences against children. Among other things, the Ombudsman has
returned statements in thir
teen consultation procedures and has arranged or taken part in ten or more
conferences on various topics. Several of the proposals and statements returned
by the Ombudsman during the year have been made a subject of further processing
within the Government Offices.
In the field of child safety and social planning the Ombudsman has among
other things held or attended a host of meetings and seminars, as well as taking
part in consultation procedures. The main emphasis during the year has been on
prevention of accident risks in childcare, schools, the home, agriculture, wells
and ponds, and also from bangers and other fireworks. In addition, the Office
has expanded its inter-sectorial co-operation with new agencies, e.g. in
agriculture and neighbouring sectors and with the Labour Inspectorate in
Stockholm and Malm. Co-operation with the Swedish Association of Local
Authorities and the Swedish Rescue Services Agency has been deepened. Thus new
agents have been added and opportunities of co-operation have been improved. The
latest statistics concerning fatal accidents to children and young persons
during the second half of the 1990s shows the lowest figures on record.
In the field of participation for children and young persons the Office has
conducted a questionnaire survey of participation schools among 11- and
12-year-olds at almost thirty schools in Sweden. The Office has also taken part
in municipal and county council conferences and seminars on participation topics
concerning children and young persons, and has co-operated with the National
Board for Youth Affairs, partly with a view to co-ordinating the efforts of the
two authorities. These measures have helped to focus attention on questions of
participation, above all in the context of municipal planning and
decision-making, and have inspired municipalities to introduce various forms of
participation for children and young persons in public decision-making.
The Office compiles annual statistics on conditions for children and young
persons in its annual report to the Government. The report, with a print run of
8,000, is much in demand among policy-makers and professional categories working
with children and young persons This year’s report to the Government, entitled
Barndomp (Childhood in Progress), focuses on the development of conditions for
children over the past century. The report also included a proposal by the
Ombudsman aimed at strengthening the participation of children and young persons
in local government decision-making by making amendments to the Local Government
Act.
On the basis of a survey during the year of sixty or more district/city court
decisions concerning very young children and access disputes, the Office
presents its standpoints with a view to strengthening the consideration shown
for the best interests of the child in cases of this kind. Finally, again with
the best interests of the child as first priority, the Ombudsman opposes the
idea of homosexual registered partners being enabled to apply for inter-country
adoption.
The Ombudsman’s own web site and an Internet channel for dialogue with
children and young persons have had many visitors, which in turn has meant a
direct dialogue with the children. The Ombudsman has canvassed children s
viewpoints on various topics, e.g. by addressing questionnaire items to pupils
in schools. In this way children themselves become actively involved in the
process of implementing the CRC.
During the year the Ombudsman was much in demand as a lecturer in many
municipalities, as has also been reflected in the media. The Ombudsman featured
in more than 1,330 articles in the Swedish press and in upwards of 70 prominent
radio and television broadcasting items. The tenth anniversary of the CRC
brought a doubling of the number of news articles (3,500) compared with 1998.
Communication with children
In 1997 the Children’s Ombudsman established an interactive site on the
Internet, called the Children and Youth Channel. This was done in order to
increase communication with children in Sweden and to create an opportunity for
the Office to put questions directly to them on different issues. The aim is to
be connected to every school in Sweden with access to the Internet. In 1998 we
carried out a national survey on the Children Channel to chart how children in
Sweden perceive their rights in different areas of society. The results were
presented in the annual report to the Government in 1999. During the year the
Office commissioned a special expert to study ways in which its contacts and
communication with children could be developed. Briefly, the study recommends
the Office to continue with the development of its interactive Children and
Youth Channel, so as to include more questions annually to a larger number of
school classes.
In addition to its interactive home page, the Office plans this autumn to
visit a number of school classes and to set up a special child and youth group
on the question of custody and access. As a means of obtaining input
documentation for various consultation procedures, the Office, acting in
partnership with the national Agency for Education, will be communicating with
school classes of various ages.
General assessment
The Ombudsman’s proposals have gained sympathy in a number of fields, but
implementation of the CRC is a long-term process in which many agencies have to
co-operate in order to achieve a change of attitude which will strengthen the
rights of the child. Information and opinion formation are among the instruments
at the Ombudsman’s disposal. The Ombudsman has a key role to play in
implementing the national strategy for giving effect to the CRC. Questionnaire
surveys by the Office of the Children’s Ombudsman have clearly shown that the
various agencies in society require help in translating the CRC into practice.
The work in which the Office is now engaged concerning child impact analyses, in
partnership with reference groups from national authorities, municipalities and
county councils, is vitally supportive to local, regional and national
authorities in their ongoing efforts to give effect to the Convention.
Organisation
As a small national authority, the Office of the Children’s Ombudsman has
difficulty in attracting and retaining highly qualified personnel. Career
opportunities and resources for competitive wage-setting are limited. The supply
of competence hinges on a wide variety of external factors. Effective methods of
information and opinion formation will have to be developed. Information
technology offers new opportunities of direct communication with children and
young persons, while at the same time making added demands on the skills of
personnel. A somewhat changed focus of activity for the Office, in favour of
subsequently following the application of existing legislation in relation to
the CRC, also implies heavy demands on the Office, e.g. with regard to its
credibility in consultation procedures. During the year, for this reason, the
Office conducted a review of its competence needs for the future. Briefly, the
Office needs to strengthen its legal competence and to make further efforts to
improve the competence of its personnel in matters relating to human rights, the
CRC and methods for giving effect to it.
Louise Sylwander, Sweden’s first Children’s Ombudsman, has decided
against renewing her mandate after 1st July 2000 but will be staying on until
1st January 2001, pending the appointment of a new Ombudsman by the Government
