Barndom berör oss alla. Vad barndom är och bör vara sysselsätter bland annt forskare, pedagoger och föräldrar, samt barn själva. Med den här boken vill författarna bidra till förståelsen av barns och barndomars plats och roll i samhället. I boken behandlas barndomens historiska föränderlighet såväl som nutida variationer av barndomar och vad barndom kan tänkas vara i framtiden.

Det här temanumret handlar om deltagande forskning inom socialt arbete samt det socialvetenskapliga fältet i en vidare bemärkelse. Deltagande forskning är en samlingsterm för forskningspraktiker som tar avstamp i socialt engagerad samhällsvetenskap, som eftersträvar mobilisering och förändring och som drivs av en ambition att göra forskning tillsammans med dem som är berörda av den. Deltagande forskningsansatser samlas under en rad olika benämningar, som till exempel aktionsforskning (Swedner 1982), samhällsarbete (Sjöberg & Turunen 2018), brukarorienterad forskning (Beresford 2021, även recenserad i detta nummer av Sara Hultqvist), deltagande aktivistisk forskning (lisahunter m.fl 2013) ), praktiknära forskning (Uggerhöj 2011), eller medborgarforskning (Kasperowski & Kullenberg 2018). Denna variation i hur deltagande forskningsansatser benämns återspeglas även i bidragen i det här temanumret. I flera av bidragen talar författarna även i termer av participatory action research (PAR). Det som förenar de olika benämningarna och ansatserna är just de deltagande dimensionerna, att det rör sig om forskningspraktiker som eftersträvar att kunskap och förståelse nås i samspel och ömsesidigt utbyte mellan forskare och forskningsdeltagare, med målsättning att forskning ska vara användbar för alla involverade. Signumet för sådan forskning är alltså att den görs tillsammans med och inte om människor.

Det här är den första utvärderingen av Gemensam familjehemsorganisation (GFO) sedan organisationen gick in verkställighetsfas i juli 2019. Syftet med utvärderingen är att utvärdera GFO:s verksamhet fram till och med 2020 genom ett fokus på GFO som organisation, måluppfyllnad, samverkan med kommunerna samt kommunernas förutsättningar att ta ansvar för sin del av måluppfyllnaden. För utvärderingen har familjehem, jourhem samt medarbetare och chefer på GFO och i kommunerna intervjuats. Resultaten från intervjuerna presenteras utifrån GFO:s och kommunernas ansvarsområden; samverkan, rekrytering, kartläggning och matchning, utbildning och stöd. Resultaten synliggör både framgångar och utmaningar i verksamheten och visar att GFO uppfyller 4 av 7 verksamhets- och effektmål. Den avslutande diskussionen fokuserar på konkreta förslag att arbeta vidare med; att skapa tydlighet i verksamheten vad gäller gränsdragningar kring GFO:s uppdrag och kommunernas vardagliga stöd till familjehemmen, att tydliggöra kommunikationskedjor och kommunikativa roller samt att i högre grad acceptera och beakta kommunernas varierande förutsättningar i det fortsatta strategiska och långsiktiga arbetet.

Familjehem är den vanligaste placeringsformen för barn och unga som inte anses kunna bo hos sina föräldrar. Det råder emellertid brist på familjehem och i en nyligen gjord studie svarade 74 procent av de 264 socialtjänster som deltog att det var svårt eller mycket svårt för dem att rekrytera familjehem (Pålsson, Lundström & Sallnäs., 2022). Bristen leder till att barn kan behöva vänta länge på en familjehemsplacering, att barn placeras i ett familjehem som inte matchar deras behov eller placeras på institution i stället. År 2022 var omkring 19 200 barn och unga placerade i familjehem. Det är cirka 500 fler än 2021 (Socialstyrelsen, 2023a). Regeringen har aviserat en satsning på familjehemsvården och antyder att fler barn och unga kan komma att behöva placeras i familjehem, bland annat som en följd av det ökande antalet unga som är inblandade i gängkriminalitet (Sveriges regering, 2023; Sveriges radio, 2023). Behovet av familjehem ser alltså ut att öka de närmaste åren och frågan är om det finns förutsättningar för att kunna rekrytera tillräckligt många. Hur ser intresset för att bli familjehem ut hos den svenska allmänheten? När vi planerade ett större projekt om familjehemsrekrytering och samrådde med våra kontakter inom socialtjänsten efterfrågades särskilt forskning om hur just allmänheten, de personer som socialtjänsten aldrig möter, de som inte efterfrågar information eller anmäler sitt intresse för familjehemsuppdrag resonerar. Hur många finns det som skulle kunna tänka sig att bli familjehem och som socialtjänsten behöver försöka nå? Och är de tillräckligt många? Det är en svår fråga att besvara, men likväl viktig att ställa. För att bidra med kunskap om den har vi genomfört en enkät riktad till den svenska allmänheten med frågor om deras inställning till och intresse för familjehemsuppdrag.

Syftet med den här artikeln är tvåfaldigt. Dels ska vi utifrån resultat från enkätstudien diskutera hur stort intresset för att bli familjehem hos den svenska allmänheten är, dels ska vi försöka beräkna hur många nya familjehem det rapporterade intresset skulle kunna resultera i. Beräkningarna bygger på en rad olika antaganden som resulterar i flera olika scenarier. Anslaget är således explorativt och vår förhoppning är att det kan ge uppslag till vidare forskning.

Executive Summary:

• Inquiry teams investigating non-recent child abuse can benefit from thinking at the outset about the role that historical research will play in their work, including its use in relation to evidence provided by survivors of abuse and the implications of any resource limitations for the kind of historical reserach they can support.
• Historical research has previously been used by a number of Inquiries to understand the legal, policy and organisational contexts in which reported incidents of non-recent abuse took place. Such contextual work can attempt to interpret 'standards of the day' against which past treatment of children can be judged, although this is a complex task requiring careful explanation of availible source material.
• Although less commonly used in previous Inquiries, there is also significant potential to draw on archival research to develop more fine-grained understandings of how organizational systems and cultures failed to protect children from abuse or led to inadequate responses to known cases of abuse.
• Child abuse Inquiries concerned with non-recent abuse should also be understood as forms of public history. Attention should be paid to questions about how their longer-term legacy in shaping public understanding can best be achieved and how their work might constitute a form of archive for re-use by others in the future.

I detta projekt undersöker vi organisatoriska förändringar som BRIS – Barnets rätt isamhället – genomfört under sin drygt 40-åriga historia. Tyngdpunkten ligger på den senaste omorganisationen, där BRIS i stället för att låta hundratals volontärer ta emot barns och ungas kontakter anställde knappt tjugo så kallade BRIS-kuratorer som idag ärde som tar emot telefonsamtal, chattar och mejl. Vi jämför denna omorganisering, med tidigare organisatoriska förändringar och med de ideologiska slitningar som BRIS genomgick precis när organisationen bildades. Resultaten visar att beslutet att ”professionalisera” kontakterna under 2010-talet genom att anställa personal föregåtts av flera tidigare diskussioner om professionaliseringsbehov. Vi kan visa att tidigare professionaliseringsdiskussioner drevs främst med argument ombehov av ökad kvalitet i kontakter med unga, men att förarbetet till den senasteprofessionaliseringen hade en ytterligare komponent: ekonomiska hänsyn. Andra resultat rör de förändringar av rollerna som förbundsordförande och senare generalsekreterare haft i organisationen, samt vilka ideologiska motsättningar som funnits i organisationens historia. Slutligen undersökte vi BRIS utåtriktade arbete, genom en analys avdebattartiklar och dagspress. Framförallt intresserade vi oss för vem eller vilka som beskrevs som problembärare och/eller ansvariga för svårigheter i barns och ungaslivsvillkor. Här finner vi en tydlig förändring. Under tidigt 1970-tal är det föräldrar och barns svaga rättsliga ställning som ses som de stora problemen. De senaste tio åren harBRIS debattinlägg handlat i mycket lite grad om detta. I stället har debatten riktat in sig på samhällets offentliga verksamheter av betydelse för barn och unga, främst skola, BUP och socialtjänst och deras problem med att fullfölja sitt uppdrag.

In this article, we study the legislative processes that formed the basis for how the state’s role and responsibility to protect and represent children was formulated dur-ing the 20th century based on legislative initiatives against corporal punishment. This is the backdrop for an analysis of the scheme to compensate adults that have claimed that they as children had been abused in the care of the state. As a basis for our ana-lyzes, we have used laws and statutes, ordinances, and preparatory works in family and criminal law as well as school and social law. In the process that led up to the com-pensation scheme a choice was made; child abuse in the past would not be defined according to the norms set by past legislation and government ordinances to protect children from abuse, but in relation to what was believed to be common child-rearing practices. The focus shifted to current understandings of what was normal in the past as well as to how similar abuse would be treated in legal practice in current tort cases disregarding the explicit stands taken by past governments to protect children in care. The opportunity for reconciliation decreased with this development

Lag (2012:663) om ersättning på grund av övergrepp eller försummelser i samhällsvården av barn och unga i vissa fall tillkom för att ge ekonomisk ersättning till den som i samband med vården utsatts för övergrepp eller försummelser av allvarlig art när personen varit omhändertagen för samhällsvård, under tidsperioden den 1 januari 1920 till och med den 31 december 1980. En särskild nämnd, Ersättningsnämnden, inrättades för att under åren 2013–2016 pröva om en sökande var berättigad till schablonbeloppet om 250 000 kr. Den svenska processen har väckt uppmärksamhet bl.a. p.g.a. den stora andelen avslag och de komplexa kriterierna för ersättning. I artikeln presenteras resultaten från ett tvärvetenskapligt historiskt-rättsvetenskapligt forskningsprojekt: Gränserför upprättelse: välfärdsstatens historiska ansvar i upprättelseprocesser riktade till offer för vanvård i fosterhem och barnhem. I fokus är glappet mellan den politiska avsikten, att skapa ett rättssäkert system för en generös ersättning, och utfallet av den rättsliga processen, som innebar att majoriteten av de sökande nekades ersättning. Förklaringen, menar författarna, står åtminstone delvisatt finna i en sammanblandning av olika processformer och rättsprinciper. Detta kan relateras till en ojämn ansvarsfördelning mellan lagfarna ledamötermed expertis från allmän domstol respektive allmän förvaltningsdomstol.Framställningen tar avstamp i socialrättsligt reglerade förhållanden och spänner sedan över skadeståndsrätt, förvaltningsrätt, processrätt, barnrätt och mänskligarättigheter.

Private providers and commercial profit are features of today's Swedish welfare society, but the market was already an arena for the production, distribution, and consumption of such services by the early twentieth century. One of the private-sector institutions offering well-to-do parents residential care for their children during restricted periods was the Barnpensionat (children's boarding houses or child hotels). Since these institutions have not been previously studied, the extent and organization of such establishments are unknown. Through analyses of digitalized newspaper material, including advertisements, this article maps the existence and function of barnpensionat in Sweden during the period 1900–1975.

Innan den kommunala dagbarnvården etablerades i Sverige provades en mängd olika institutionaliserade barnpassningsalternativ. Parallellt med verksamheter som barnkrubbor och barnträdgårdar som erbjöd halv- och heldagspassning fanns då en mer okänd variant. Det var barnpensionat, vilka erbjöd en flexibel typ av passning där barnen mot betalning kunde inackorderas i helpension under så lång tid som föräldrarna önskade.

Giving birth out of wedlock was associated for centuries with shame, economic burden, and secrecy. Unmarried pregnant women could escape stigma by travelling away from home and purchasing a confinement elsewhere. They could hide there when the pregnancy started to show, give birth, have their children adopted or sent to foster care, and then return home. This article explores the social economy of this stigma by investigating the market for anonymous births in Sweden through newspaper advertisements addressing unmarried pregnant women during the period 1905-1935. It shows that unmarried pregnant women risked exploitation when entering this market, in which private midwives, private maternity homes and individuals offering accommodation and employment were all operating.

Contemporary studies of young adults leaving out-of-home care signal that many are highly vulnerable to unemployment, teenage pregnancies, suicide and poverty. In recent years, the need for broader support for care leavers has been underlined in several policy documents in Sweden and elsewhere. Yet, this is not a new phenomenon; the risk of social exclusion was also debated in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries within the context of boarding-out organizations. By introducing governmental techniques for monitoring, boarding-out organizations aimed at controlling and helping care leavers after being discharged. However, the care leavers themselves also actively used the organizations for their own purposes and needs. This article explores how a Swedish boarding-out organization – the industrial school of Prince Carl – monitored care leavers after they had been discharged from the organization from 1877 to 1902. It is argued that a stable and continuously operating institution geographically located in the same area for a long time could have been crucial for care leavers' opportunities to actively use the means of the boarding-out institution as a resource for help and support later in life.

Since the 1990s historical abuse of children in out-of-home care has been the focus of political attention in numerous western countries. This chapter takes on a well-needed historiographical approach outlining processes of inquiries, apologies and reparations that have emerged in Australia, Ireland, UK, Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland. It asks why these processes are occurring here and why now? While such processes arise in response to particular local situations, Sköld demonstrates that they are also shaped by the international context. Consequently, a transnational flow of ideas shape national inquiries, apologies and redress packages.

Baby farms designate both private homes that accepted informally boarded out infants for a fee—a practice that proliferated in many industrialized cities around 1900—and the criminal practice of murdering infants for profit. Typically, children in the care of baby farmers, criminal or not, were born out of wedlock, and their unmarried mothers faced the dual dilemma of earning a living while simultaneously finding childcare for their infants and escaping the shame of illegitimacy. The baby farmers themselves were usually poor working-class foster mothers or midwives running private laying-in establishments where unmarried mothers could deliver in secrecy. Ultimately, baby farms raise many issues including concerns about the stigmatization associated with illegitimacy, high mortality rates among illegitimate infants, lack of childcare facilities, and women’s work. These are all matters that have a profound impact on children’s lives and shape notions of children and childhood. This entry first examines international concerns about infant mortality. It further discusses how baby farms are represented in the media, legal controversies over baby farms, and their decline.

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Book review of

Redressing Institutional Abuse of Children. By Kathleen Daly

Fosterbarnens ö skildrar historien om ett barnhem i Stockholm - Prins Carls uppfostringsinrättning – vars filantropiska ledning tog det radikala beslutet att köpa en ö i Stockholms skärgård och tvinga torparna som arrenderade jord på ön att hysa inrättningens barn. Gålö blev ett barnrikt samhälle när så många som 80 fosterbarn placerades där årligen. Under de år som systemet var i bruk (1860-1939) kom nästan 1000 Stockholmsbarn att tillbringa delar av sin uppväxt på Gålö.

Flytten styrdes av storstadsfilantropernas föreställningar om landsbygdens framtidspotential för fattiga stadsbarn och institutionslivets fördärvliga inverkan på kommande generationer. Barnhemsbarnen blev fosterbarn. Uppfostran i staden byttes mot uppfostran på landsbygden. Men arrendatorerna på Gålö motsvarade inte alla förväntningar. Uppfostringsprojektet på Gålö kom därför lika mycket att handla om att fostra vuxna människor till goda förebilder som att fostra barnen till skötsamma vuxna.

Boken skildrar en av samhällets eviga frågor – hur tar vi bäst hand om barn vars föräldrar saknar möjligheter att göra det själva? Vilka krav ska ställas på den som vårdar andras barn? Hur ska tillsynen organiseras? På Gålö tillämpades under 1800-talet och tidigt 1900-tal ett nästintill unikt system som kan tyckas främmande idag, samtidigt uppvisar det många likheter med dagens samhällsvård.

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Since the 1990s, abuse and neglect in institutions and in foster homes for children in out-of-home care have been reviewed by inquiries and truth commissions in several countries. State and federal or regional commissions have interviewed, set up hearings with, or collected written submissions from people who claim to have been subjected to abuse and neglect whilst in care. In many respects, truth commissions and inquiries into past abuse and neglect share features characteristic of transitional justice processes. However, said inquiries and truth commissions have only occasionally attracted attention in the broad scholarly field of transitional justice. The aim of the article is to compile inquiries into abuse and neglect in out-of-home care that have been conducted worldwide in order to frame the historical context in which these inquiries and truth commissions were set up. Furthermore, this article argues that a comparative perspective can highlight important epistemological issues, such as what knowledge is produced in the inquiry reports and how an historical understanding of past abuse and neglect of children in out-of-home care is framed. The article points out some possible areas for future research that may constitute a new interdisciplinary field within the field of transitional justice.

At the beginning of the 20th century, pregnancy outside wedlock was associated with shame. This study discusses how this shame resulted in social and economic costs which, in turn, created demand and supply of various services advertised in the daily press 1905—35. A supply of discreet services arose to assust unmarried pregnant women, who were at rik of losing social status and wished to keep their condition and baby secret. Such services included accommodation to which they could withdraw before delivery, discreet maternity care and privately organized foster care and adoption. But many unmarried women also faced economic vulnerability due to pregnancy as they risked losing their employment and housing. Temporary positions and accommodation were also advertised to them through the market. Without money, desperate to solve their situation, these women seem to have constituted a sought-after low paid labor force, generating an exchange economy where it was not obvious who requested a service from whom, who was the buyer and who was the seller.

Der frühere Missbrauch von Kindern in der Ersatz-fürsorge  ist  ein  wichtiges  Thema  der  Politik  gewor-den,  wie  die  Einrichtung  von  Untersuchungskom-missionen, offizielle Entschuldigungen und staatliche Aufarbeitungsbemühungen  zeigen.  Menschen,  die  als Kinder von ihren Geburtsfamilien getrennt und in Pflegefamilien oder in Heimen Gewalt erfuhren, ha-ben in den letzten Jahren ihre Stimme erhoben und ihre Rechte als Überlebende des Missbrauchs einge-fordert.  Wie  können  wir  aber  Missbrauch  und  Ge-walt  im  Hinblick  auf  historische  Zeiten  definieren,  in  denen  Kinder  nicht  denselben  Status  wie  heute  hatten? Dieser Aufsatz zeigt die Herausforderungen, die  mit  dem  Bemühen  um  eine  Historisierung  von  Gewalt  und  Missbrauch  einhergehen,  indem  er  da-rauf  verweist,  welche  unterschiedlichen  Vorgehens-weisen  im  schwedischen  Aufarbeitungsprozess  von  Kindesmissbrauch gewählt wurden.

Historiska sexualpolitiska texter från eller om Sverige, som problematiserar dagens debatter om sexualpolitik. Texterna är kommenterade av Sveriges vassaste forskare i sexualitetshistoria.Sexualpolitiska nyckeltexter innehåller historiska sexualpolitiska texter från eller om Sverige. Här återpubliceras dikter, riksdagsdebatter, teckningar, pamfletter, litterära skildringar, affischer, utredningar och en t- shirt som alla problematiserar dagens debatter om sexualpolitik och ger en fördjupad förståelse av hur sexualitet förståtts, praktiserats och politiserats.Varje nyckeltext analyseras och kommenteras av forskare som sätter in texterna i sitt historiska sammanhang. I boken återpubliceras dels texter som haft stor betydelse i sin samtid och/eller för den sexualhistoriska utvecklingen, dels texter som fungerar som nycklar i historiska debatter och förståelser av sexualitet.

In recent decades, history of childhood and history of education have gained status as political concerns through the establishment of numerous truth commissions and inquiries into historical institutional child abuse. The article discusses the methodological and ethical dilemmas that arise when writing the history of abused children with the objective of both recognising and redressing the victims as well as offering an account of ‘what really happened’. Comparing how inquiry commissions in Ireland, Sweden and Denmark evaluate and approach victims' oral testimonies and written records from child welfare agencies, the article explores the acts of balancing between different epistemological approaches to the concept of “truth”. The results suggest that while inquiries have to address and convince several audiences simultaneously, empiricist positivist methods of inquiry have dominated the approaches to “truth”. However, this approach has not been without ambivalence, and there are examples of constructivist approaches as well.

Tattare, tiggare, vansinniga och löskefolk  utsatta människor har funnits i alla tider. Många har fötts in i fattigdom och utanförskap, andra har drabbats av olyckor under livets gång som gjort att tillvaron kantrat. En del har lyckats resa sig, andra har dukat under. Vad vet vi egentligen om utsatta människor i svensk historia? Hur såg tillvaron ut för den som var psykiskt sjuk eller funktionshindrad, och för den som inte kunde försörja sig själv? Vad hände de unga kvinnor som blev gravida utan att vara gifta? Och hur klarade sig deras barn, de som kallades oäktingar? Här varvas skildringar av enskilda livsöden med övergripande historisk analys  från medeltiden till våra dagar. I fokus står den lilla människan, hennes vardag och kampen för överlevnad och värdighet.

Änglamakeri, att genom vanvård eller mord göra sig av med fosterbarn som omhändertagits mot betalning anses vara en uteslutande kvinnlig missgärning. Detta trots att det genom tiderna funnits flera exempel på manliga förövare. De så kallade änglamakerskorna har blivit sinnebilden av den hänsynslösa grymma kvinnan.

The Swedish Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse and Neglect in Institutions and Foster Homes has interviewed 866 people who claim that they were subjected to neglect and abuse during their time in municipal or state care in Sweden. The inquiry has also examined many of the interviewees’ documentary records. This article is based on the interviews and documentary records for 140 individuals and raises questions about the possibilities of corroborating stories of abuse and neglect through documentary records. In this study we found that the interviewees and the records told similar stories about where the interviewee resided during care and the duration of placements. However, in details the sources represented different perspectives on the same individual’s history. Important aspects to take into consideration are that case files seldom reveal anything about abuse and neglect, and the tendency of authorities to make only cautious descriptions of suspected abuse. The study also highlights the differences between practices of recordkeeping which mean that some individuals can read extensive case files about themselves while other peoples’ care histories have left barely any trace in the archives. In this article, these findings are used to question expectations about the possibility of establishing one ‘truth’ of abuse in an individual case by collecting ‘evidence’ from several sources.

Drawing on their experiences as an inquiry commissioner and archivist of a Financial Redress Board, Sköld and Jensen set out to discuss conflicting understandings of truth and reliability that appear when care-leavers’ testimonies are tested against archival records in financial redress processes. They describe dilemmas that have put their professional as well as personal codes of ethics to the test, arguing that the judicial system of financial redress requires standards of proof that neither archival records nor oral testimonies can meet.

Since the 1990s, an increasing number of inquiries into the history of children’s out-of-home care have shown that child welfare sometimes failed to protect children. In this Special Issue, we explore how the Nordic countries have responded to allegations and scandals of historical child abuse within child welfare, and also how history matters in these political processes. We ask how Nordic societies have acknowledged past historical child abuse and how they aim to deal with its legacy. Attempts to redress, and provide compensation for, past failures are discussed in the context of transitional justice.

This article sets out to explore how a Swedish children’s rights organization has accounted for adults’ capability or incompetence to address children’s interests and how such notions have chan-ged over time and have been negotiated between actors within the organization. Since its esta-blishment in 1971, The Children’s Rights in Society (BRIS – Barnens rätt i samhället) has been an organization of adults working for children. Children’s rights organizations often stress that their work is guided by a child perspective, although much children’s rights advocacy is performed by adults. What is the bearing of this discrepancy when it comes to the formulation of child rights policies? Is it possible to distinguish an adult perspective operating in the shadow of the embraced child perspective? The results demonstrate that in the 1970s, the organization identified parents as the children’s main betrayers, but that the importance of child experts and child welfare profes-sionals as advocates for children’s voices and opinions was gradually emphasized more. During the second period of study (2007–16) the need for increased resources and competences of child welfare professionals has been accentuated as welfare institutions such as school, social services and child and adolescent psychiatry are simultaneously seen as the cause of and key to children’s problems while the generational conflict between children and parents has been downplayed

In her famous work Dust: Archive and the Cultural History (2001), Carolyn Steedman stated that “the Historian who goes to the Archive must always be an unintended reader, will always read that which was never intended for his or her eyes.” (Steedman 2001: 75). The fact that we are the unintended readers have ethical consequences, especially when the sources concern experiences of sensitive personal matters. In Sweden, when accumulating such sources from an archive, access will be regulated by rules enforced by law or by the archive. In order to safeguard the integrity of the historical subjects the archive might allow restricted access to sources, for example by redacting any personal information in the data made available to the researcher. However, when using private collections that are not stored in an archive, no professional gatekeeper is present to safeguard the integrity of the historical subjects. Instead we must rely on our own ethical judgements. Moreover, in several countries, ethical vetting boards now also have to approve of research projects on sensitive matters that involve individual historical – though possibly still living – actors. But what if the historian’s ethical judgement conflicts with the ethical vetting board’s? What happens to historical research if we adjust our knowledge interests towards queries and sources ethical vetting boards are likely to approve? In this blog post we discuss two cases from Sweden where the Regional Ethical Vetting Board at Linköping University has evaluated two research projects, which have dealt with letters in private collections. The respective decision processes illustrate the dilemmas and problems that the process of ethical vetting might pose to historians....

Historical knowledge is crucial for inquiries, truth commissions and redress processes that aim to offer redress to victims of historical child abuse in out-of-home care. The professional competence of historians has much to offer, but taking part in such political processes means that the historian faces certain challenges. This article explores the ethical, emotional, epistemological and methodological risks historians may encounter when involved in redress processes, but also the consequences of historians absence from such processes. The authors have contributed with their expertise at various stages of the Swedish redress process and use their own experiences as well as those of other researchers who have been involved in redress processes to discuss the issues at stake.

Inquiries and redress processes addressing historical child abuse within out-of-home care constitute a growing field within reparative justice where historians have as yet figured only in the margins. The authors suggest that historians have an ethical and moral responsibility to contribute to this field. But such contributions mean facing ethical risks because of the blurry distinction in the legal regulations of research ethics, which fails to clearly separate research that require permission from ethical vetting boards from research by official authorities that is exempted from such requirements. In addition, the confrontation with traumatic stories of abuse represents a possible exposure to emotional risks. Historians, who are seldom professionally trained to reflect on their own or their informants emotions, need to be attentive to reactions from such exposure and to learn from other academic fields in this respect. The fact that investigators write normative reports for multiple audiences (victims, politicians, academics and the general public) with the objective of both recognizing the victims testimonies of abuse as well as offering an account of what really happened, means that the historian have to re-evaluate her/his epistemological stance and maybe also navigate between different methodological approaches such as constructivism and positivism. These challenges are accentuated when individual cases are tested to meet the legal requirements of a financial redress process. Without historical contextual expertise guiding such processes redressing the past can come to rely on anecdotal historical knowledge that distance the past from the present instead of an understanding of how past and present are intersected and how the (non-)existence of measurements to address child abuse have a legacy in our own time.

The Swedish Redress Scheme intended for victims of historical child abuse inout-of-home care compensated only 46 % of claimants who sought economic compensation for past harms. This article explores the reasons behind this comparatively low validation rate by investigating a) how the eligibilitycriteria of the Redress Act were evaluated by the Redress Board, and b) the justifications and underlying values used when applications were rejected with reference to that the reported abuse was not deemed to be sufficiently severe according to past standards. Victim capital, which determines how vulnerable or credible a victim is perceived to be by others, as well as competence and narration are essential aspects for this type of legal proceeding. The article demonstrates that the claimants had to traverse a complicated web of criteriato be awarded compensation. The outcomes for claimants were affected by how the past was conceptualised in this legal setting, what competences the victims themselves possessed, what competence and resources the administrative system offered, and to the extent to which the decision-making process fragmented victims’ narratives.

This article addresses the Swedish state’s process to provide redress for historical abuse in out-of-home care. The aim is to illuminate how the current state’s responsibility for past child abuse is negotiated in such processes. In Sweden, a temporary financial redress scheme was in effect 2013-16, which compensated fewer than every second applicant. The article demonstrates that the political ambition to recognize symbolically and acknowledge the victims’ suffering and the past society's betrayal of them resulted in unintended consequences when translated into a legal bureaucratic process. The logic of a court assessment is based not on recognition but on establishing legal liability. In the end, redress came to focus on what the state could be deemed responsible for in the past and how modern legal principles could be harmonized with a compensation scheme designed to compensate those for wrongdoings which cannot be redressed by current tort law.

This chapter explores what could happen when experiences of lived institutional care is confronted by the present welfare state’s attempt to rightening the past. The chapter demonstrates how the Swedish state’s redress scheme, in operation 2013-2016, aimed at victims of historical child abuse in out-of-home care shifted away from an explicit aim to acknowledge the victims’ unjustifiable suffering, to the limited ways in which the state could be considered responsible. It scrutinises which details were pivotal for why victims of child sexual abuse did not receive the financial redress as adjudicated by a temporary Redress Board. Three possible explanations are identified: a) the Government Bill guiding the Redress Board did not state that all kinds of sexual abuse would count as severe abuse eligible for compensation; b) contemporary tort law came to influence the assessment of the historical redress claims and set the standards for who received financial redress and who did not; c) it proved difficult to combine acknowledging the suffering of victims with assessing the responsibility of the state. If caregivers were unaware of the abuse, or if they took steps to prevent further abuse, the state could not be held responsible. The outcome did not concur with the scheme’s explicit aim to acknowledge unjustified suffering amongst victims of historical child abuse in out-of-home care. Consequently, the chapter explores how a ‘non-apology’ can feature in financial redress for past harms, and how the transformative aspect of a transitional justice framework can vanish during its practical operation.

This book addresses the child care market existing before and in parallel with Swedish welfare state’s public welfare for children, 1900–1975. The focus is on commercial maternity homes where unmarried mothers could give birth to their illegitimate children in secret, as well as children's hotels where parents could accommodate their children for a longer or shorter time in exchange for money.

This collection examines the inquiries into the historical abuse of children in care which have proliferated across Western countries over the last twenty years, positioning them as a new area within the field of transitional justice. Drawing on the experience of care-leaver advocates, historians, archivists, museum professionals, social workers, lawyers and psychologists who have been involved in, or researched investigation, apology and redress processes in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Scotland and Sweden it traces the growth of the movement and identifies differences in the ways in which it has played out in specific locations. Writing from their experiences the authors are able to identify the opportunities and challenges which face the different professional groups who have been drawn into such work

Children are often portrayed as defenseless victims of war. However, during war periods, issues concerning children’s agency are also brought to the fore. Based on media materials describing one country in war (Finland) and relief efforts from aneighbor country (Sweden) this article identifies both Finnish and Swedish children as committed to Finland’s cause in different ways. Discussing the issue of authenticity when it comes to children’s commitments, the article shows that children emerge both as agentic subjects and as objects of political propaganda. It argues that children’s commitment as represented in the Swedish media could function as propaganda pressuring adults to take action.

During the Second World War, some 70,000 Finnish children were evacuated to Sweden. Most of the children were placed in foster care, although a large number of temporary children’s homes were also opened in response to the influx. This mass evacuation would not have been possible without the support of the Swedish public. This article highlights how families rallied to invite Finnish children into their homes, almost always without any financial reward, and considers the reasons, including altruism and a sense of duty, that prompted them to welcome foreign children.

Drawing on archival material from the two organizations in charge of the evacuations (Centrala Finlandshjälpen during the Winter War and Hjälpkommittén för Finlands barn during the Continuation War) and from two newspapers, the study shows that existing local associations had a significant impact on the rapid recruitment of foster parents and the placement of a very large number of children. The study demonstrates that individuals could recruit large numbers of fosterers in small towns and villages, which suggests the significance of neighbours and social pressure. However, the willingness to accept Finnish children should not be understood as an expression of boundless solidarity, for where the literature on the Second World War tends to highlight Sweden’s sense of solidarity linked to notions of ethnicity, which led it to adopt relatively generous refugee policies towards its Nordic neighbours, we find that the solidarity shown Finnish children was conditional.

Swedes’ solidarity and altruism were governed by their own needs as much as their impression of the recipients’ needs, as evidenced by applications where the children’s age and sex were mentioned. Girls were in greater demand than boys; younger children in far greater demand than adolescents. Moreover, solidarity was founded on notions of a close relationship, be it a common professional background with the children’s parents, membership of similar associations (sport clubs, for example), or a common religious background. Ultimately, solidarity and altruism were considered to be somewhat fragile—it was thought that too much control of foster homes would risk people’s willingness to help.

All this raises the questions of the nature of volunteer work, solidarity, and altruism. How voluntary is voluntary work if it is guided by duty? Can altruists act in solidarity, and at the same time satisfy their own interests?