This article analyses four different contexts in Sweden where children’s rights have been mobilised to govern vulnerabilised migrant childhoods. The concept of ‘vulnerabilisation’ is suggested to capture the political processes creating the conditions for defining and attributing vulnerability. To enable children’s rights to be a productive tool for challenging the repressive governing of migrant families and children, the article argues for the need of a problematisation and contextualisation of both the children’s rights paradigm and the vulnerabilisation of migrant childhoods. © The Author(s) 2019.

Governmentality Humanitarianism Undocumented migration Vulnerability Children’s rights Deportability

male case report female human clinical article Article Sweden migrant Child