scholarly journals Children's Rights and Children's Wellbeing: Equivalent Policy Concepts?

2015 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 807-823 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. KAY M. TISDALL

AbstractChildren's rights and children's wellbeing are often casually paired together in both academic literature and policy discussions, but they differ conceptually, methodologically and politically. This has become particularly evident in Scotland, where ‘landmark’ children's legislation in 2014 has set up a clash between statutory requirements for children's rights and children's wellbeing. This article utilises the Scottish example to wrestle with the advantages and disadvantages of each concept as a framework for policy and practice. The article concludes that children's wellbeing benefits from being aspirational and maximising, easily incorporating children's relationships and collective needs, and having advanced quantitative methods of measurement. But children's wellbeing also risks being apolitical, utilitarian and professionally led in both measurement and practice. Children's rights, in contrast, emphasise minimum standards, do not easily include important matters for children, such as love and friendship, and have limited quantitative investment to date. Yet they are politically powerful, backed by law, and hold duty bearers accountable. Decisions need to be made about the relationship between children's rights and children's wellbeing – and which is the primary framing for policy and practice – because they are not equivalent concepts.

2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 769-789 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Kay M. Tisdall

Children’s wellbeing has moved from an academic field of interest to a policy and practice framework, internationally and in many countries. Children’s wellbeing tends to be twinned casually with children’s rights but recent Scottish legislation – the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 – has put children’s rights and children’s wellbeing in tension. This provides an opportunity to consider the concepts critically. The article scrutinises parliamentary debates and accompanying submissions, to reveal that children’s rights arguments failed due to political concerns about litigation and a lack of evidence that children’s rights improved children’s lives. Children’s wellbeing arguments were more successful, as children’s wellbeing continues the familiar trajectory of a needs-based approach. It has additional benefits of maximising outcomes, emphasising early intervention and prevention, and statistical development. It also risks being apolitical and professionally-driven, with no minimum standards and limited recourse for children’s and their families’ rights and complaints. These findings raise broader questions about how to argue for children’s rights in national and global contexts where children’s wellbeing has ever-increasing prominence, fuelled by calls for evidence-based policy and accountability via outcomes.


Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 500
Author(s):  
Stephany Iriana Pasaribu ◽  
Frank Vanclay

Although companies have many direct and indirect impacts on the lives of children, discussion of the responsibility of business to respect the rights of children has primarily focused on child labor. Using UNICEF’s Children’s Rights and Business Principles as a framework for our analysis, we considered the activities of oil palm plantation companies operating in Indonesia. Our data come from key informant interviews and reflection on two programs established to promote respect for children’s rights in the Indonesian palm oil industry: one by Pusat Kajian Perlindungan Anak (PKPA) (Center for Child Study and Protection); and one by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) in conjunction with UNICEF. We considered: how plantation company activities impacted children’s lives; how companies demonstrated respect for children’s rights; and how observance of children’s rights can be improved. We discuss four problematic issues: getting company commitments to children’s rights into policy and practice; having a strong business case for respecting human rights and children’s rights; contradictory objectives within companies; and complexities around children in the workplace. We argue that a children’s rights based approach should be applied to the activities of all organizations. This children’s rights lens is needed to overcome the invisibility of children in society and industry, and to address the root causes of human rights harms. We note that respecting children’s rights will likely contribute to getting a social license to operate and grow.


2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 8-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Dolan ◽  
Nevenca Zegarac ◽  
Jelena Arsic

This paper considers Family Support as a fundamental right of the child. It examines the relationship between the well-being of the child as the core concept of contemporary legal and welfare systems and family as a vital institution in society for the protection, development and ensuring the overall well-being of the child. Considering the fact that international legal standards recognise that children’s rights are best met in the family environment, the paper analyses what kind of support is being provided to families by the modern societies in the exercising of children’s rights and with what rhetoric and outcomes. Family Support is also considered as a specific, theoretically grounded and empirically tested practical approach to exercising and protecting the rights of the child. Finally, international legal standards are observed in the context of contemporary theory and practice of Family Support, while the conclusion provides the implications of such an approach.


2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 70-79
Author(s):  
Sylwester Zielka

In this paper, I focus on one of the children’s rights, which Janusz Korczak raised in his writings, namely the child’s right to the present day, which I understand as a postulate to appreciate the dignity of a child in its everyday life. My aim in this paper is, therefore, not only to reconstruct and uncover the complexities of this postulate, but also to theoretically embed this concept in pedagogical narratives about the child, and more specifically in anthropology of education and upbringing. In order to achieve this aim, 1. I will describe two paths in thinking about the relationship between human beings and their culture, taking into account especially its temporal dimension. Then I will proceed to 2. the concept of children’s rights in Korczak’s understanding of the child subjectivity; in order to indicate 3. the radical and ethical character of message his thinking.


2011 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-188
Author(s):  
Karen M. Staller

In this article I explore the intersections of children's human rights, social policy, and qualitative inquiry from a social work perspective. First, I consider the relationship between human rights work and social work. Second, I argue that children add complexity to the human rights debate. In doing so, I briefly examine the conflict between children's rights as developed in the United States and that of the United Nation's Convention on the Rights of the Child. Third, I turn to a specific qualitative research project in which a team of researchers conducted an in-depth study of the prosecution of child sexual abuse in one U.S. jurisdiction. I argue that the findings from this study illustrate how qualitative inquiry can reveal conflicting and often hidden value trade-offs that must be addressed when enacting and enforcing children's human rights. This study demonstrates what qualitative inquiry has to offer policy advocates who seek to promote children's human rights.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 85-93
Author(s):  
Ebru Elci ◽  
Cigdem Kuloglu

The purpose of this study is to reveal the relationship between the attitudes of parents toward children’s rights and educational levels of their parents. The researcher’s universe consists of parents who live in Istanbul and has children between the ages of 6 and 14, and sampling consists of a total of 3100 parents (1550 mothers and 1550 fathers). The data of the study were collected with a Likert type Parent-Child Rights Attitude Scale consisting of 63 items. The scale evaluates the attitudes of the parents toward their children’s rights as two main attitudes, ‘Care and Protection’ and ‘Self-Determination’. In ‘Care and Protection’ attitude, there are two sub-dimensional structures as ‘Government Assurance and Support’ and ‘Care and Protection’. The ‘Self-Determination’ attitude has a single sub-dimensional structure. In the analysis of data, Statistical Package for the Social Sciences program was used beside necessary statistical techniques. The data obtained regarding the effect of parents' education levels on their attitudes toward children’s rights are presented in a tabular form with respective frequencies. Keywords: Children’s rights, parent’s attitudes toward child rights, parent’s attitudes


2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 519-536 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernadette J. Saunders

This article focuses upon ‘the textual abuse of childhood in the English-speaking world’ (Saunders and Goddard, 2001). It highlights the significant role that the choice of words used to refer to children, and their experiences, plays in both the continued denial of children’s rights, and the perpetuation of children’s lesser status in relation to adults. The evolution in language apparent in international children’s rights documents is compared and contrasted with language adopted in some media articles, and in both fictional and academic literature, provoking thought about children and their experiences. Attention is particularly drawn to evidence of textual abuse in literature that ostensibly advocates for greater acknowledgement of each child as a person with human rights and an entitlement to dignity and respect. The author calls for a more critical awareness of language as a powerful influence on people’s attitudes and behaviours. It is argued that children occupy an ambivalent place in Western society – at once cherished, nurtured, precious and endearing, and yet ‘always othered’ (Lahman, 2008), and often belittled, subjugated, and subjected to ‘normalised’ violence as punishment for being a child. Children’s advocates ought to not only consciously adopt respectful and empowering written and spoken language in reference to children, they ought also to draw others’ attention to the potentially negative impact of ill-chosen or thoughtlessly adopted language. Fictional and academic literature, that thoughtfully and powerfully adopts language and expresses ideas that promote children’s rights, is recognised for its explicit and/or subliminal positive influence on children, adults and our future society.


2008 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 545-563 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edzia Carvalho

AbstractThe rights of the child, as recognised by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child have been increasingly reiterated in international declarations and national commitments. However, there exists a disparity in ‘the de jure protection and de facto realization of human rights’ (Landman 2005: 5). The relative absence of systematic engagement within academia and without on the issue of mapping the operationalisation of children's rights by States not only hinders ongoing attempts to identify and explain the causes and variation in the failure to implement children's rights but also weakens national and international efforts to hold States accountable for their obligations. This article seeks to address the lack of utilisation of measures of children's rights and the deficiencies in the measures that are in use. By drawing on the existing academic literature and intergovernmental efforts to measure human rights, the article proposes a measurement matrix that could be used to chart the implementation of States' obligations towards children's rights. The matrix is an attempt to further the emerging international endeavours to develop children's rights indicators.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document