The Children's Ombudsman's report has examined the consequences of the corona pandemic for children in Sweden.

Children have been interviewed and a questionnaire has been sent to principals in schools, social services and health care to see how decisions have been made based on the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

In addition, authorities have been interviewed about how they have worked with children's rights during the pandemic. 

- What we see is that many children fall between the chairs.

These are children who feel bad, children who may have already been in vulnerable life situations and cannot receive the adult support they are entitled to.

Concerns about domestic violence, mental illness, says Elisabeth Dahlin. 

The convention became layers

The Convention on the Rights of the Child became Swedish law on January 1, 2020, just months before the pandemic broke out, but according to the Ombudsman for Children, has not been applied sufficiently during this year.

According to BO, Sweden needs to be better prepared for children's rights during societal crises.

- Children are more than two million of the country's citizens, but children's right to information both about the pandemic but also about various measures taken has failed.

We believe that it is therefore so important that authorities, municipalities and everyone who is in contact with children must be able to inform children. 

But it is still a pandemic, is it not understandable that decisions were made primarily to reduce the infection? 

- Infection control and stopping the pandemic are the basis of it all, but the Convention on the Rights of the Child and children's rights also apply during a societal crisis.

What we can see is that things could have been done better if there had been a child rights perspective from the beginning.   

Important to evaluate

The Children's Ombudsman thinks that it is now important to further evaluate how the decisions during the pandemic have affected children and presents several proposals for how society should become better at complying with the Convention on the Rights of the Child during a crisis:

 • Ensure children's participation in Sweden's crisis preparedness. 

 • Ensure children's right to education during a crisis.

 • Ensure children's right to health and leisure.