Hundra år av ensamhet - Om ensamkommande barns möjlighet till skydd enligt LVU.

Sammanfattning: Ongoing conflicts in Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia and Sudan has meant that the number of refugees worldwide has risen to levels not measured in decades. Children constitute a big part of these refugees, some of them fleeing their homes without a parent or a legal guardian. In a Swedish and international context these children are often referred to as ”unaccompanied”. This term referrers to the child’s special position in international research about migrant children as well as in Swedish welfare policies. The aim of my essay is to analyze how the term ”unaccompanied child” is filled with a content in the child’s contact with authorities and courts in Sweden. I focus on analyzing how children who have fled their native countries without parents or legal guardians are described in 42 judicial decisions from a number of County Administrative Courts (förvaltningsrätter) according to the Care of Young Persons Act (1990:52, LVU). I will also try to clarify how this description, together with judicial principals, affects the courts arguments and analysis of the unaccom-panied child. A legal sociological point of view influences my investigation, where the focus is not to investigate what is the law, rather then how the law is applied on an everyday basis. According to social constructivist theories about the importance of language in creating, organizing and maintaining a human understanding of the concept ”reality”, I analyze what is important in the courts creation of the ”unaccompanied child”, for example phrases used and disposition of the judgment. My results show two main starting points. First, there is an ambition of the Court to treat the unaccompanied child as ”any other child”, focusing on how the child’s situation is covered by the scope of LVU. Such a starting point takes less interest with the specific situation that the unaccompanied child’s position constitutes. Secondly, I find several exam-ples when the Court attaches great importance of the unaccompanied child´s specific situation. In these cases the unaccompanied child’s historical experi-ences function as a reason for both granting and denying compulsory care. The Courts main argument for granting care according to LVU is consequently divided into two parts. In this remark there´s no such thing as a uniform standards on how the children’s experience of fleeing there native country shall be processed inside the four walls of the Court. With these results in mind and with the numbers of unaccompanied children continuing to rise during 2015, I mean that there are reasons for the court to analyze and consider how fundamental legal principals are maintained when the matter concerns an unaccompanied child.