Human rights

This chapter covers human rights and how they appear in Swedish law, with particular focus on the rights of women, children and minorities, and on work against discrimination. The starting point is that all people have equal rights. After the Second World War, in 1945, 51 countries founded the United Nations (UN) to prevent new wars and protect people's rights, and in 1948 the UN presented its Universal Declaration of Human Rights with 30 articles. Among other things, it states that everyone is born free and equal in worth, and that everyone has the right to, among other things, express their opinion, work and have holidays, go to school, seek asylum, choose their religion freely, be free from discrimination, and hold a citizenship that cannot be taken away without a fair and approved reason. In Sweden, the Discrimination Act bans discrimination based on, among other things, sex, age, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation and disability, and the Equality Ombudsman (DO) is the agency tasked with enforcing the law; crimes targeting someone because of their group's identity count as hate crimes and can carry harsher sentences.

One section covers gender equality, meaning that women and men should have the same rights, obligations and power. Examples given include efforts toward an even gender balance among politicians, laws on equal pay for equal work, and parental benefit (föräldrapenning), which lets both parents stay home with children. Intimate-partner violence and honour-related violence, which can affect women, men and LGBTQI people, are described as criminal, as is child marriage under 18. Sweden also has a consent law and a sex-purchase law, under which it is the buyer of sex, not the seller, who can be punished.

Children's rights are based on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which became Swedish law in 2020 and means, among other things, that children must be allowed to have their say in decisions that affect them, for example in custody disputes. In 1979 Sweden was the first country in the world to ban corporal punishment of children, a rule since followed by about 70 other countries.

On minority rights, in 2000 Sweden recognised Jews, Roma, Sami, Sweden Finns and Tornedalians as national minorities with the right to use their languages in contact with public authorities. The Sami are also recognised as an indigenous people with their own elected body, the Sami Parliament (Sametinget). Rights for LGBTQI people have also strengthened over time: homosexuality became legal in 1944, adoption rights came in 2003, and the right to marry in the Church of Sweden in 2009. Given all the dates, agency names and groups mentioned, this is a chapter where the test will likely test exactly this kind of specific fact.