Struggles over human rights in local government – the case of access to education for undocumented youth in Malmö, Sweden

ABSTRACT

The present article elaborates on struggles over the inclusion and exclusion of undocumented children and young people in the Swedish school system. Through conducting an in-depth case study on the issue of access to school in the city of Malmö in Sweden, our analysis demonstrates how the right to education for undocumented migrant children is subject to a process of struggle between divergent discourses on children’s human rights. Internal debates at the city level of governance are identified around, for example, whether the police could be denied access to schools or if contradictory messages from various authorities might lead to a legitimacy problem. Other questions are the registration of grades when the children concerned are reluctant to be put into a register due to the risks involved; and if fictitious names could be used on class lists that police officers can request. As the article shows, these local struggles are an expression of tensions between different levels of governance that are also affected by the migration control regime, as regards rights for children who are residing irregularly. In that respect, there is a struggle over the appropriate legalistic discourse – as in, to which level should it make reference. However, actors contesting a restrictive interpretation of the right to education also make substantial use of, what we call here, an ‘experiential’ discourse – that is, drawing upon the everyday experiences and feelings of those whose rights are in question. Struggles at the local governance level also have relevance for exploring substantial parts of the broader political context in which the human rights of undocumented migrants are (de)contested.

KEYWORDS:

• Human rights
• local government
• city
• Malmö
• Hannah Arendt
• education
• undocumented youth
• irregular child
• minor

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Statistics 30 September 2012. Phone interview with Police Department in Malmö, Sweden.

2. The project was conducted by Anna Lundberg in collaboration with [NN], and funded by Malmö Institute for Studies of Migration, Diversity and Welfare and ‘Challenges of Migration’ a research program that connects issues of health and migration involving the City of Malmö, Malmö University and Skåne Region Council.

3. 1. Principal A in our article (also attending the meeting)

2. Counselor at a Malmö-gymnasium, wanted to be anonymous to protect a boy in clandestinity.

3. Development secretary at research and development in Malmö, focus education (see http://www.malmo.se/Kommun–politik/Sa-arbetar-vi-med…/Forskola-och-utbildning/Skolutveckling–Forskning/FoU-Malmo-utbildning.html)

4. Coordinator for language introduction in Malmö; worked for 5 years with this. I believe she was also at the meeting.

5. Teacher working especially with children who has Swedish as second language. Working with older children today compared to before.

6. One of the city attorneys.

4. In Sweden, municipalities are responsible for the implementation of school activities and they have freedom to determine how schools should be organized for the national objectives to be achieved. The municipalities are also responsible for the schools, the resources and the necessary conditions for an equivalent school.

5. National police board, 2011. Rikspolisstyrelsens föreskrifter och allmänna råd om Polisens inre utlänningskontroll - RPSFS 2011:4 FAP 273-1.

6. When REVA started in Malmö a controversy emerged within Swedish political circles and the media on the everyday dangers experienced by undocumented migrant children living within Swedish society (Stark 2012). In particular, these dangers included the risk undocumented migrant children faced of deportation through attempting to access their right to education by attending school. Despite national legislative changes intended to enshrine the right to school for all present in Sweden, in practice this was undermined.

Additional information

Funding

The study was funded by the Swedish Research Council.

Notes on contributors

Anna Lundberg

Anna Lundberg is an associate professor at the Department of Global Political Studies, Malmö University, Sweden, and a member of Malmö Institute for Studies of Migration, Diversity and Welfare. She is currently conducting research with refugee children for a project entitled ‘Undocumented children’s rights claims’. Recent publications include, with Lisa Ottosson: ‘People “out of place”? Advocates’ negotiations on children’s participation in the asylum application process in Sweden’, in the International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family, 2013.

Michael Strange

Michael Strange is a senior lecturer at the Department of Global Political Studies, Malmö University, Sweden. His research relates to the emergent political agency of irregular actors within global politics, and he has published on the role of civil society within the WTO and the EU, on networked forms of governance and on the everyday politics of migrant children. He is the author of Writing Global Trade Governance: Discourse and the WTO, 2013, Routledge.