I remember when I was working for UNICEF in China all the ministers said “children represent the future” and I was trying to say “they are also part of the present”, but no, no, no, “they are part of the future”.

Then in the 20th century the laws of social control, protection and compulsory education, socialization theories came. The consequences of this new attitude towards children is that they are excluded from the world and placed in waiting rooms - called schools. In Norway, it's for 13 years, 13 years in the waiting room, that’s enormous. What a challenge and what a responsibility to me as a teacher, or a head teacher or as an ombudsman for children.

Children change from being the property of the parents to the property of the state because some states find that they are the ones who have to protect and this process makes them objects in society's struggle for the future ideal community. But if you ask the kids themselves today all the research on participation in Europe says, from the kids mouths, “we are the not yet human beings”, we are not yet adult, not yet able to do, not yet responsible, not yet, not yet!