Unaccompanied Migrant Children’s Rights: A Prerequisite for the 2030 Agenda’s Sustainable Development Goals in Spain and Sweden

Guadalupe Francia, Adrián Neubauer and Silvia Edling
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Guadalupe Francia: Faculty of Education and Business Studies, University of Gävle, 80176 Gävle, Sweden
Adrián Neubauer: Department of Pedagogy, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 28049 Madrid, Spain
Silvia Edling: Faculty of Education and Business Studies, University of Gävle, 80176 Gävle, Sweden

Social Sciences, 2021, vol. 10, issue 6, 1-23

Abstract: Starting from a child rights-based approach to sustainable development, this contribution underlines and compares the discourses in selected Spanish and Swedish migration and education policies on the rights of unaccompanied minors to education and discusses their impact on the enactment of the 2030 Agenda’s Sustainable Development Goals in both countries. Based on critical discourse analysis, this research shows the co-existence of two different discourses: one on unaccompanied minors as global rights holders and the other on unaccompanied minors as foreign citizens. By describing unaccompanied migrant minors as citizens rather than children, international migration agreements make it possible for the Spanish and Swedish governments to deprioritize other international agreements on refugees’ rights, such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the 2030 Agenda. Furthermore, as child rights and sustainable development are mutually reinforcing, the negotiation of rights shows that there are obstacles to accomplishing rights-based Sustainable Development Goal 4 in the 2030 Agenda.

Keywords: child rights; Sustainable Development Goals; unaccompanied migrant minors; migrant children (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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