Pernilla Leviner, Aoife Daly och Rebecca Thorburn Stern

Project summary

Treated like a child: age discrimination law in Sweden and the United Kingdom

The principle of non-discrimination is a central feature of human rights law at both national and international level. It is well established that children can experience discrimination on grounds such as ethnicity or sex. This project argues that discrimination against children on the basis of their age – simply because they are children – has largely been overlooked, even though age is a protected characteristic under discrimination law in some countries.

 

Examples include children’s limited opportunities to influence political decisions, their exclusion from public spaces, the continued acceptance in many countries of violence against children for disciplinary purposes, and children’s limited ability to act independently in legal proceedings. The project will document children’s experiences of discrimination in these areas and, in light of its findings, undertake an in-depth legal analysis of relevant equality and anti-discrimination legislation. The researchers argue that children are routinely excluded from the protection of such legislation, not as a result of carefully considered reasoning but because of unsupported assumptions about children as a group.

 

The project aims to develop a robust theory of equality for children and to help ensure that children’s voices are heard. Sweden and the United Kingdom will be used as two case studies to illustrate different approaches to children and equality. The researchers argue that childhood needs to be recognised as a distinct category in discrimination law if meaningful improvements in children’s rights and circumstances are to be achieved.