Moral stances and moral language in reports investigating child protection in Finland

ABSTRACT

In 2012, an eight-year-old girl was murdered in Finland by her father and her father’s spouse. The death of this girl, who was already known to child protection services and other support organizations, drew attention to problems in Finland’s child protection system and led to the commissioning of several public investigations. Reports on these investigations were published as separate reports in 2013 and 2014.

This study assessed the moral stances on children taken in three reports through a philosophical analysis of the moral language contained in them. The analysis yielded four themes: children’s voice, rights, a good childhood, and vulnerability. The reports included both explicit and implicit moral stances towards children. Because these reports have an impact on child protection practices, their moral stances on children need to be explicitly studied and discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Child protection
• investigation reports
• moral stances
• moral language
• child death cases

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.