in many parts of the world, girls and women’s sexual and reproductive rights are neglected for a long time, and media interest has been cool, writes Åsa Regnér. Photo: Bertil Ericson / TT
minors who come to Sweden to be treated like the children they are.
I am very anxious that Swedish law is followed and that the girls who fled to Sweden treated like children on arrival in Sweden, regardless of marriage. Therefore now also working with the National Board of Health to clarify the guidelines found in this issue. The social services must have a clear gender perspective and help both girls and boys to become actors in their own lives. We have a chance to give those who come to our country a new life and we should not disappoint. The rights of children and women Conventions must, in addition to Swedish law, be the starting point. But in the debate on child marriage and migration, we need to see the big hurricane. We tend to forget the global context.
Today, I participate in a debate in parliament. One of the topics that will be addressed is child marriage.
In many parts of the world, girls and women’s sexual and reproductive rights are neglected for a long time and media interest has been cool. Girls pay the price when their own governments fail them when warlords enslaves them, and when the countries’ ability to pay does not actually line up. Child marriage is a way to control girls and women. It is a response to the notion that girls’ sexuality must be mastered and owned by someone other than herself, a man. It is also a response to the idea that girls and women are merely their body and its functions, childbirth and relationships are her main task. In strongly patriarchal system needs girl and her sexuality harnessed and taken care of. When she married off harmless when she becomes a man’s property. In fact, life is often a life of work under slave-like conditions, detention and abuse.
Conservative religious communities, anti-abortion organizations and reactionary politicians have interacted. Anything less funding in global aid goes to sexual rights, women activists living dangerously in many parts of the world, UN agencies working on gender must shrinking budgets, although Sweden’s contribution increases.
The performances of the status of women are ancient but still exists in various forms. Women’s organizations in the world, courageous activists, women politicians and some men have drawn attention to the issue for many years. UN working on this field, not least in the context of migration. UN Special Rapporteur Zainab Bangura called child marriage for girls fleeing a “negative cooping strategy”, when I met her at the United Nations in New York last week. It is believed to protect girls from abuse by other men if they marry her off to a man she then “belong”. We must, of course, away from the idea that men have the right to women’s bodies, in one way or another.
A few years ago I visited a girls’ school in Asia where it is still common that girls are married off. Parents also pay for it. I met with teachers and students. The girls were overall very motivated to study and curious, and I remember their goal of becoming engineers, doctors and hairdressers. The female teachers were concerned that these dreams not always met. Too often disappeared talented girls without completing their education into marriage with older men as parents made up of. I was very taken when I heard that the teachers’ solution was to cede part of their limited own salaries to a small fund so that they could offer poor parents a small compensation, the possibility to retain the girls unmarried and in school for a while.
One simply fight child marriage in which they are applied and support to girls and women can decide about their own bodies, plans, life, dreams, and education. That women and men have access to sex education, contraception and the right to control fertility and relationships. That there are laws against violence and abuse and that they know their rights. The issue of child marriage and lack of sexual and reproductive rights are interrelated, may sound obvious. But it is not. Many countries in the world, including the EU, have in fact worked against girls and women, sexual and reproductive rights in recent years.
Minors will to Sweden to be treated as the children they year. Rights of the child’s parent and social services should always make an individual evaluation. The County Administrative Board in Östergötland has a government mandate to support the work against honor-related violence and oppression, where child marriage and forced marriage are included. County Administrative Board’s competence team provides assistance and advice to, among other things, social services and offers a telephone support line.
Although the National Board has established a support function for professionals for advice in complex cases. The Board has been asked to make a detailed analysis of the impact of the refugee situation of social services. Within the framework of this mandate shall take into account the differences between boys and girls.
Sweden consistently supports these rights domestically and in the international community. We are fighting for equality all the way and is consistently in girls’ and women’s side. Therefore, I will arrange a seminar on migration and gender equality in New York shortly. I will take my share of responsibility for promoting equality in Sweden as part of a feminist government with a feminist foreign policy also in all the international contacts I have.
Åsa Regnér
children, the elderly and Gender Equality
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