Vulnerable children and their right to be heard

Ann-Christin Cederborg Professor and Head of the department:

Child and Youth Studies, Stockholm university

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Vulnerable children

Children exposed to: Sexual and physical abuse Sex trade (trafficking) Bullying

Children seeking asylum Neglected children Children with psychological problems Children committing serious crimes

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Girl’s exposed to sex trade

Serious social problem

Difficulties with prosecution of traffickers One reason victims’ reluctance to cooperate with

authorities

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Children exposed to sex trade

Lindholm, J., Cederborg A-C. & Alm, C. (2014). Adolescent Girls Exploited in the Sex Trade: Informativeness and Evasiveness in Investigative Interviews. Police Practice and Research: An International Journal (in press)

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Aim

We do not enough about how to interview exploited children:

This study investigates how girls respond to questions about the sex trade with respect to the quality of questions asked

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Quality of question types

Open questions:Invitations prompt children to freely recall information. ”Tell me what happened”

Directive questions openly focus on details already mentioned ”When did you leave Sweden”

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Question types

Focused questionsLeading questions focus on details or aspects not previously mentioned, asking to affirm, negate or select given options: ”Do you know anyone here in Sweden”

Suggestive questions assume details that have not been disclosed by the child strongly communicating what response is expected: ” What did you tell your parents before you went to

Sweden”

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Quality of responses

Disclosures: Request conforming, Agreements, Disagreements,

Extended task related

Non-disclosures: No answer, evasive responses

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ResultQuantitative analyses

Disclosures five times more frequent than non-disclosures.

Request-conforming most common

More than 50% of the question asked were not recommended leading and suggestive questions.

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Reason

Victims may fear reprisals

Are under the trafficker’s control

Loyalty towards their trafficker

Disloyal with Law Enforcement

Do not believe the trafficker will be prosecuted

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Results

Disclosures involved a large number of yes and no responses implying that few details of legal importance were elicited

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Victims

Victims exposed to severe abuse or are in the traffickers’ control are the least likely to disclose information

Have feelings of guilt and shame

Fear of reprimands

Feelings of co-responsibility

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Evasive responses

The girls avoid disclosing information about crime specific details:

involvement in the sex trade their relations to persons involved in the crime

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Case specific details

Not motivated to disclose: Time laps between the period of exploitation and the

conducting of the police interviews

Exposure of high level of violence, abuse and force

Interviews together with the perpetrator

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Novel insights

Further the knowledge about each girl’s personal style to disclose information

Police officers can facilitate disclosure by avoiding criticism, confrontations and leading questions. They should also avoid suggestive prompts

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Asylum seeking minors in interpreter-mediated interviews

Objectives Explore the extent to which the minors-

informativeness was effected by the quality of the information seeking prompts

Examine how accurately the interpreter managed to transmit substantial information provided by the minors

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A quantitative analysis

Of: the translated questions asked by the officials the minors’ responses to them the accuracy with which the minors’ responses were

rendered

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Question types

Open questions: Invitations Directive questions

Focused questions: Leading questions Suggestive utterances

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Minors’ responses

Disclosure request conforming extended task-related disagreements and agreements

Non-disclosure evasive absence of responses

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Translations of the minors’ responses

close approximation of what the child said summary expanded divergent non-rendition silence

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Result

Provision of 3 547 responses: 3 285 were disclosures

262 non-disclosures

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Result

Type of disclosures varied depending on type of question asked: Open questions (invitations and directives) elicited

higher level of request conforming responses compared to focused questions

Focused questions (leading and suggestive) elicited more of agreements, disagreements and extended responses

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Renditions

Accurate renditions 76%

Inaccurate renditions 16%

Non renditions 8%

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Minors withhold specific factsEspecially when asked to: reveal information about ID papers location of the smuggler orphanage home parents’ identities and whereabouts time of events that could provide information for

child’s age estimation smugglers’ and helpers’ identity

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Active participants

Seldom gave no answers

Elaborated on their answers

Tried to provide alternative accounts when disagreeing with options given

Elaborated on their responses when they agreed with the options provided

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Interpreter

All inaccurate renditions were sources of concern:

Each could negatively affect the quality of information provided to the Migration authorities

For example when they improved on or ignored the style and semantic choices made by the minors

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Interpreter-mediated asylum hearings in SwedenKeselman, O., Cederborg, A-C., Lamb, M.E., & Dahlström, Ö. (2008). Mediated communication with minors in asylum- seeking hearings. Journal of Refugee Studies. 21,1,103-116. Keselman, O., Cederborg, A-C., Lamb, M.E., & Dahlström, Ö. (2010a). Asylum seeking minors in interpreter-mediated interviews: what do they say and what happens to their responses? Child & Family Social Work. 15, 325-334.Keselman, O., Cederborg, A-C., & Linell, P. (2010b) “That is not necessary for you to know!” Negotiation of participation status of unaccompanied children in interpreter-mediated asylum hearings. Interpreting. International Journal of Research and Practice in Interpreting. 12:1, 83-104.Kelselman, O. (2009). Restricting participation. Unaccompanied children in interpreter-mediated asylum hearings in Sweden. Dissertation Linköping University

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Overall findings

Interpreters can profoundly influence the fact finding aspects of asylum investigations

Migration authorities have to increase their awareness of how the minors’ disclosures can be influenced by the questions asked

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Conclusion

Vulnerable children’s right to be heard is obvious but:

Their motivation to report may vary

Irrespectively, the interviews have to be performed in such a way that the minors are given best possible prerequisites to give their perspective.