Abstract
Through an analysis of 100 asylum decisions and 10 interviews with 20 asylum officers at the Swedish Migration Agency this article reveals two intricate processes through which children’s rights are displaced in the Swedish asylum process; by overlooking children’s individual claims for asylum through a circle of neglect, and negating children’s best interests. The article demonstrates how the balancing act between migration control on one hand and children’s rights on the other hand plays out in the asylum process, which results in a double displacement; the children are not adult enough to be addressed as asylum seekers and not children enough to deserve qualification as bearer of children’s rights. An in-depth analysis of everyday practices at institutions applying children’s rights is essential both to understand the reproduction of discrepancies between rights on paper and rights in practice, and to explore the potential of rights to disrupt oppressive vehicles of power.
Highlights
Sweden is perceived as a pioneer in the struggle for children’s rights (Freeman 2000: 287; Shamseldin 2012: 94)
We argue, examples were revealed of practices that may be understood as technologies of displacement of children’s rights in the deportation regime
Together with the time pressure, the asylum officers are even less likely to try and look for such information and get updated on what kind of child specific claims for asylum that could be made. This lack of knowledge about child-related country of origin information (COI) and child-specific claims makes the children’s own stories less relevant to listen to for the asylum officers, and gives them fewer incentives to search for more knowledge about how to apply children’s rights in their decision—and we are back on square one
Summary
The issue of the domestic effects of the CRC in Sweden and how it relates to migrant children has been discussed by Hans E. The tension between curbing immigration and children’s ‘universal rights’ is visible in the asylum process as this is the space for balancing the much-debated issue of maintaining Swedish welfare simultaneously as the right to asylum is protected. This administrative process begins at the Migration Agency as the first instance of three examining applications for asylum, and it is here that the emphasis of the asylum process shall happen.
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