Ethical Review in Sweden Concerning Children's Participation in Research about Child Abuse and Neglect

This chapter deals with children's participation in research concerning children's experience of exposure to violence, abuse or neglect and how ethical aspects of such research are regulated in Sweden. The Act (2003:460) on ethical review of research involving humans (etikprövningslagen, EPL), introduced in 2003, states that certain types of research require permission to be carried out. Since then, the scope of the law has been expanded to include more types of research, and, in 2019, the structure of the ethical review process changed with the introduction of the Ethical Review Authority and the Ethical Review Board of Appeal (Överklagandenämnden för etikprövning, ÖNEP). In parallel with children being seen as important participants in research, the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) became law in Sweden in 2020. This means that when children participate in research, it must be taken into account that children are both competent, autonomous individuals with the right to self-determination, and vulnerable in the sense that they need to be protected from exploitation and abuse. In this chapter, I describe how these two interests are balanced in ethical review regulation and highlights some concerns with this regulation when it comes to research with children about their exposure to violence, abuse, or neglect.