UN-BLURRING THE MYTHS AND REALITIES OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN’S RIGHTS IN SOUTH AFRICA

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-120
Author(s):  
T N Sithole ◽  
Kgothatso B Shai
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Children's Rights ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Children’S Rights ◽  
Vulnerable Groups ◽  
Great Awareness ◽  
Policy Theory ◽  
Rights Of The Child ◽  
The Status ◽  
Customary Practices

Awareness of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW 1979) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC 1989) is relatively high within academic and political circles in South Africa and elsewhere around the world. In South Africa, this can be ascribed mainly to the powerful women’s lobby movements represented in government and academic sectors. Women and children’s issues have been especially highlighted in South Africa over the last few years. In this process, the aforementioned two international human rights instruments have proved very useful. There is a gender desk in each national department. The Office on the Status of Women and the Office on Child Rights have been established within the Office of the President, indicating the importance attached to these institutions. These offices are responsible for co-ordinating governmental efforts towards the promotion and protection of women and children’s rights respectively, including the two relevant treaties. Furthermore, there is also a great awareness amongst non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) in respect of CEDAW and CRC. This can be ascribed mainly to the fact that there is a very strong women’s NGO lobby and NGOs are actively committed to the promotion of children’s rights. Women are increasingly vocal and active within the politics of South Africa, but the weight of customary practices remains heavy. The foregoing is evident of the widening gap between policy theory and practice in the fraternity of vulnerable groups – children and women in particular.

scholarly journals Family Support as a right of the child

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 8-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Dolan ◽  
Nevenca Zegarac ◽  
Jelena Arsic
Keyword(s):  
Family Support ◽  
Family Environment ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Children's Rights ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Children’S Rights ◽  
Legal Standards ◽  
Rights Of The Child ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Relationship

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.

scholarly journals What is Left in the “Too Hard Basket”? Developments and Challenges for the Rights of Children in Conflict with the Law

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nessa Lynch ◽  
Ton Liefaard
Keyword(s):  
Justice System ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Children's Rights ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Children’S Rights ◽  
Rights Of The Child ◽  
United Nations Convention ◽  
Age Limits ◽  
The Law ◽  
Cross National

The 30 years since the enactment of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child has seen extensive developments in the theory and practice of children’s rights. Children’s rights are now an established academic discipline with the study of children in conflict with the law being a fundamental area of analysis. This paper takes the approach of highlighting three areas of development of children’s rights scholarship in relation to the criminal justice system: children’s rights, developmental science and notable themes emerging from cross-national scholarship, including age limits, diversion, effective participation and deprivation of liberty. In addition, it analyses three gaps or challenges which are “left in the too-hard basket” for the coming decades.

scholarly journals 1979: a Year of the Child, but Not of Children’s Human Rights

Diplomatica ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 202-220
Author(s):  
Linde Lindkvist
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Children's Rights ◽  
Children’S Rights ◽  
Industrialized Countries ◽  
Political Awareness ◽  
Historical Case ◽  
Global Issues ◽  
International Agencies ◽  
Rights Of The Child ◽  
The Status

This article explores the diplomatic contestations over children’s rights in connection to the International Year of the Child (iyc) of 1979. At the time, the Year was celebrated as an outstanding success, an event which helped to heighten social and political awareness of the status of children in both developing and industrialized countries, and which brought to light a plethora of new global issues, including street children, children with disabilities and children in armed conflict. Today, the iyc is frequently reduced to a plotting point in histories charting the rise of an international discourse of children’s rights, a discourse that is intimately linked to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child of 1989. This article shows how the concept of children’s rights was of peripheral importance to the overarching purposes of the iyc, which instead revolved around a notion of child welfare as integral to wider projects of social and economic development, either in the form of economic sovereignty or basic needs. The article then revisits the 1978–1979 UN debates on a human rights treaty for children, showing how this project initially garnered minimal support among states, international agencies and non-state actors. The article thus takes issue with teleological accounts that see the iyc primarily as a first step toward the subsequent breakthrough of children’s human rights. It also showcases how historical case studies of UN observances can be fruitful for scholars interested in the clashes and amalgamations of competing concepts and projects at an international level.

scholarly journals Juvenile Justitia and the protection of children’s rights in Europe: the practice of the European Court of Human Rights

2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (68) ◽  
pp. 167-185
Author(s):  
Mykola Bondaruk ◽  
Serhiy H. Melenko ◽  
Liubov Omelchuk ◽  
Liliya Radchenko ◽  
Anzhela Levenets
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Children's Rights ◽  
Children’S Rights ◽  
European Convention ◽  
Legal Tradition ◽  
Rights Of The Child ◽  
European Court ◽  
Analysis And Synthesis ◽  
The Status

The objective of the research is to analyze the main violations of children's rights within the European Convention on Human Rights to highlight the basic positions of the European Court of Human Rights ECHR on their protection, as well as to determine the advisability of applying the practice of this court by the European states. The methodological basis of the work consists of different methods, such as analysis and synthesis, dialectical, logical-legal and formal-legal. The result of this work allowed identifying the role of the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights as a source of European law and its importance for the protection of the rights of the child, interpreting the legal positions established in the pertinent decisions of the said court and comparing them, to justify the need for your careful observation of the practice of the ECHR in the application of the law. It is concluded that the practice of the ECHR is recognized as a source of law in most states. And although the Ukrainian legal tradition does not recognize the status of judicial precedent as a source of law, such precedents are actively used in everyday legal activity.

Children’s rights education and social work: Contrasting models and understandings

2010 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 443-456 ◽  
Author(s):  
Didier Reynaert ◽  
Maria Bouverne-De Bie ◽  
Stijn Vandevelde
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Implementation Strategy ◽  
Children's Rights ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Children’S Rights ◽  
Rights Of The Child ◽  
Social Work Theory ◽  
United Nations Convention

Despite the adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the interest in developing a theoretical grounding for children’s rights education seems to be rather limited. This article argues for a better understanding of children’s rights education as a distinctive practice in social work. Two different conceptions of children’s rights education are identified: as an implementation strategy and as social action. Their relevance to both social work theory and practice are examined.

scholarly journals Human rights begin with the rights of the child

2020 ◽  
pp. 356-360
Author(s):  
Natalia Linnik
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Children's Rights ◽  
The State ◽  
Children’S Rights ◽  
Vulnerable Groups ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
Foreign Experience ◽  
Rights Protection ◽  
Rights Of The Child ◽  
Socially Vulnerable Groups

The state, with the help of legal norms and the use of power levers regulates social relations, establishes and maintains the necessary order in the country, but also obeys the society itself is called to serve it. The relationship between society and the state, its quality and level is determined in particular by the effectiveness of the policy in the field of children's rights protection. At the same time, the role of the institution of the ombudsman (or the commissioner) in the affairs of children is undoubtedly extremely important. Children as one of the most socially vulnerable groups of the population need full protection of their rights. The introduction of the Ombudsman's Office in Ukraine is a serious step in improving the protection of children's rights. At the same time the transformational processes that take place in the Ukrainian society today predetermine the need for further research on the content and mechanisms of implementation of state policy in the field of children's rights protection. To do this, it is necessary to conduct an analysis of the domestic and foreign experience of the functioning of the institution of the ombudsman for the rights of the child, which is the purpose of this article. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to analyze the national and foreign experience of functioning of the Ombudsman Institute for the Rights of the Child. The article discusses the prerequisites and features of the establishment of the Ombudsman for Child Rights in Ukraine and the problems of its modern functioning. The models of construction of the Ombudsman Institute in foreign countries are analyzed: Germany, Finland, Canada, New Zealand, Austria, Sweden and Australia. The article also emphasizes the need to improve the system of jurisdictional protection of the rights of the child and the adoption of the Law on the Commissioner for the Rights of the Child in Ukraine.

scholarly journals The CRC in South Africa 15 years on: does the new Child Justice Act 75 of 2008 comply with international children’s rights instruments?

2020 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-182
Author(s):  
Lorenzo Wakefield
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Children's Rights ◽  
International Standards ◽  
Children’S Rights ◽  
Best Interests ◽  
Rights Of The Child ◽  
International Obligations ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The Right

Article 40 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child requires states parties to take appropriate measures to ensure that children accused of committing offences are treated in a manner that would ensure that their best interests are upheld. South Africa ratified the CRC in 1995, the provisions of which have influenced the children’s rights clause in its 1996 Constitution. Section 28(1)(g) of the Constitution stipulates that children may not be detained, except as a measure of last resort and, should they be detained, it should be for the shortest appropriate period of time. Section 28(1)(g) goes further to give domestic effect to the following guarantees stipulated in Article 40 of the CRC: (1) the right to be treated in a manner, and kept in conditions, that take account of the child’s age; and (2) to have a legal practitioner assigned to the child. Recently, SA has enacted its Child Justice Act 75 of 2008, which came into operation on 1 April 2010. The question to be covered in this article is whether this Act truly complies with the international standards set by the CRC (15 years after SA ratified it); the general comments by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child and other non-binding, yet persuasive instruments like the Standard Minimum Rules on the Administration of Juvenile Justice and the United Nations Rules for the Protection of Juveniles Deprived of their Liberty. This article only examines four aspects of the Child Justice Act, being: criminal capacity; pretrial release and detention; diversion; and sentencing. It concludes that, but for a few technical aspects of the Child Justice Act, SA took significant steps to comply with its international obligations when it domesticated the CRC in relation to children who commit offences.

scholarly journals Polish Pedagogy in the Early 20th Century: The Emergence of the Concept of Children’s Rights

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 159-176
Author(s):  
Małgorzata Turczyk
Keyword(s):  
Children's Rights ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Children’S Rights ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
Central Focus ◽  
Social Inadequacy ◽  
Rights Of The Child ◽  
Social Pedagogy ◽  
Protection Of Human Rights ◽  
Social Pedagogues

This article presents an analysis and interpretation of sources and secondary materials collected during research on social pedagogy being a source of ideas for the contemporary concept of children’s rights. Polish social pedagogy in its historic heritage, grounded in the ideas and writings of the first Polish pedagogues, of the 1920s and 1930s as well as in specific theoretical and institutional measures that served the practice of social support, help and care, was guided by the notion of the protection of human rights. This particularly referred to the rights of the child threatened by poverty, exclusion, social inadequacy; the child who was hungry, abandoned, orphaned and in urgent need of support. The article discusses the source of the concept of children’s rights found in the achievements of Polish social pedagogues, and their implications for the evolution of theory and practice in protection of the children’s rights. The central focus of these considerations is the category of law as an important element of the human educational environment during childhood.

Maturing Children’s Rights Theory

2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 283-331 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matías Cordero Arce
Keyword(s):  
Research Policy ◽  
Children's Rights ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Children’S Rights ◽  
Childhood Studies ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Interdisciplinary Field ◽  
Rights Of The Child ◽  
Antidiscrimination Law ◽  
The Status

Children’s rights research is an under-theorised field of studies. The Convention on the Rights of the Child (crc) has gained the status of source and (“theoretical”) framework of research, policy and practice, thus making most research efforts a matter of discussing implementation. This paper wishes to advance a critical, that is, politically committed theoretical agenda for children’s rights research that is not bounded by the institutional framework (i.e. crc) but intends to freely think it. Programmatically, it delves on the following issues, that call for further research, of the like that might start filling in this theoretical void: the position of children’s rights research within the wider interdisciplinary field of childhood studies, children’s citizenship (instead of “participation”), the normative legitimacy of children’s rights/laws, children’s law as a branch of antidiscrimination law, and the necessary independence of children’s laws from children’s sciences.

The Moscow Declaration on the Rights of the Child (1918)

2016 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manfred Liebel
Keyword(s):  
Children's Rights ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Russian Revolution ◽  
Children’S Rights ◽  
Valuable Contribution ◽  
Rights Of The Child ◽  
History Of

The Moscow Declaration on the Rights of the Child, which came into being during the course of the Russian Revolution in 1917–18, thanks to a group of socially and politically engaged pedagogues, exemplifies an emancipatory current in the history of children’s rights. Exploring original sources, the author presents this little-known declaration in detail, explains its political and intellectual background, and commends its impact and historical relevance. He concludes that the declaration provides a valuable contribution to the theory and practice of children’s rights, which deserves enhanced attention.

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