THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD

Sweden ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in June 1990. The Convention boils down to four words: Children shall be respected. In August 2000 the government administration proposed the Municipal Council of Karlskrona to decide to start a project for the realisation and implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in all activities in the municipality. The Council adopted the proposal.

The city of Karlskrona mainly works with 4 basic principles in the Convention:

• Aban on discrimination (art. 2)
• The best interest of the child (art. 3)
• The right to life and development (art. 6)
• The child's right to express his or her views (art. 12)

The main goals to achieve are:

• The UN Convention should be an active instrument and should permeate all decision-making activities.
• The city should establish systems for monitoring the realisation of children's best interest in local government activity.
• Child impact analyses should accompany all decisions affecting children
• Child statistics should be developed
• Child policy plan should be developed.

To be able to achieve this, we have to build up the knowledge of the Convention. In cooperation with Save the Children and the National Office of the Children's Ombudsman, we arrange different kinds of activities, seminars, lectures, competitions, theatre-and musical performances. Basic training measures supplemented by inservice training of all personnel in all of the municipality departments. Realisation of the Convention is an on-going process – and it has to be kept alive.

The project has its political board and each city department have a representative in a personnel network. He or she has the task to spread the knowledge in his/her own department. Children and youngsters from different schools are deeply involved in the project, too.