The expert: Young people are recruited into gangs in the same way as child soldiers

9/14/2023, 8:53:20 PM

Highlights: Henrik Häggström is a senior analyst at the Swedish Defence University. He has long worked with international organizations on issues concerning child soldiers. He is now researching gang crime, and he believes that there are great similarities in how children and young people are recruited. "It's very difficult to find equivalents in other Western countries that even come close," he says."It is difficult to rehabilitate children who have been in this type of situation. They have had power, money and weapons in hand," he adds.

How children and young people are recruited into criminal gangs in Sweden is similar to the way child soldiers are recruited in armed conflicts. This is the opinion of Henrik Häggström, senior analyst at the Swedish Defence University. "It's very difficult to find equivalents in other Western countries that even come close," he says.

Henrik Häggström has long worked with international organizations on issues concerning child soldiers in countries where there are armed conflicts. He is now researching gang crime, and he believes that there are great similarities in how children and young people are recruited.

"Either it happens with enticements of power, status and money. But it can also be done with threats and coercion, and we are seeing this to an increasing extent in Sweden today," he says.

"Not obvious to sit down at school 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 to then sit down in a school desk and study 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. It is also time to look at the rehabilitation programs established in countries with armed conflicts and draw conclusions from the successes shown there, he says.

"If there is one thing that the experience of armed conflicts has 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.