In Sweden, you are a child until you are 18 years old. This means, for example, that you can’t run a business or decide for yourself in the same way as adults do. But you do have special rights.

A child who comes alone and applies for permission to live in Sweden has the right to receive a trustee; an adult who can help with various things instead of the parents. If there is no family that you can live with, you’ll be given a place in a special home for young people seeking asylum.

Each child who seeks asylum has the right to talk to somebody who is good at understanding children. You’ll be given the opportunity to talk about what has happened in your home country and whether there is anything of which you are particularly afraid.

In Sweden it’s forbidden to beat children. Not even teachers or policemen are allowed to do that.

It’s forbidden for adults to have sex with children under the age of fifteen.

It’s forbidden for an adult to pay a child who is between fifteen and eighteen years old in order to have sex with them, or to have sex with a child in his or her care. It’s never allowed to have sex with somebody who doesn’t want to.

A child who is under fifteen can’t be convicted of a crime.

Children are not allowed to get married without special permission.

It’s forbidden to force children to work or to take advantage of children in any other way. But things like cleaning and washing up where you live don’t count as work; these are tasks that everyone has to do.

Children can take a job if they want to, but there are special rules so that children don’t work too much or at night. To be allowed to start working, a child must have the permission of a parent or some other adult who is responsible for the child. But you don’t need the permission of any adult to stop working.