Henrik Häggström has long worked with international organizations on issues related to child soldiers in countries where armed conflicts are ongoing. Now he is researching gang crime, and he believes that there are great similarities in how children and young people are recruited.
– Either it happens with the lure of power, status and money. But it can also happen with threats and coercion, and we see that to an increasing extent in Sweden today, he says.
“It’s not obvious to sit down at a school desk again”
Both approaches make a return to a normal life impossible.
– It is difficult to rehabilitate children who have been in this type of situation. They have had power, money and weapons in hand, and then sitting down at a school desk and reading mathematics again is not obvious.
Henrik Häggström believes that Sweden must work harder to welcome back the children who drop out of the professional criminal path. There is also time to look at the rehabilitation programs that have been established in countries with armed conflicts and draw conclusions from the successes that have been shown there, he says.
– If there is something that the experiences of armed conflicts have shown us, it is the importance of rehabilitation and return programmes. And that we as a society understand that these children are in a special situation with special needs.