Barnfridsbrottet - ändamålsenligt utifrån barnets bästa?

Sammanfattning: Physical and psychological violence exist in many homes in Sweden. Far too many children have grown up with witnessing, hearing and experience the violence. In recent years research has shown that children who witness violence within the family gets profoundly affected. They often feel a sense of powerlessness, abandonment, and shame. To strengthen the legal position of the child, a basis for aggravating circumstances and compensation for the victim of a crime who witness acts intended to harm their sense of security and trust in relations to a close relative was introduced. Alt-hough this was a step in the right direction, the legislature felt that these were not sufficient measures to protect the child, therefore “barnfridsbrottet” was introduced on 1 July 2021. The legislation criminalizes the actions of allowing children to witness crimes between relatives. The main reason for the criminalization was to strengthen the legal position of the children. Before the legislation, children were not considered a plaintiff if they witnessed crimes between relatives. This meant that they lost the chance to get the rights of a plaintiff, most importantly the chance to get a special representative prescribed for them. Many times, this result-ed in the guardian preventing the children from being heard during the pre-liminary investigation. Research has shown that children need to talk about their experiences, and they need to be given a chance to be part of the legal process to reduce the feeling of powerlessness. This was one of the reasons why “barnfridsbrottet” was instituted, by making the child a plaintiff they gained new legal rights. The purpose of this essay was to investigate whether the expediency and purpose of the law is maintained in practice, with focus on a child’s per-spective. That the children are now given a plaintiff status are in many ways positive for the children’s legal position. However, the criminaliza-tion raises several questions, for example there is a lack of research on how the child is affected by having to testify and be part of a legal process against a relative. “Barnfridsbrottet” does strengthen the children’s legal position in many ways, but there are still many issues that need to be worked on for the children to receive a complete protection.