Children’s Rights: Progress and Perspectives

533 Pages·2011·8.317 MB·English

by  Michael Freeman (ed.)

Children’s Rights: Progress and Perspectives

Children’s Rights: Progress
and Perspectives
Essays from the International Journal
of Children’s Rights
Edited by
Michael Freeman

LEIDEN • BOSTON
2011
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Children’s rights : progress and perspectives : essays from the International Journal of
Children’s Rights / edited by Michael Freeman.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-90-04-19049-8 (hardback : alk. paper)
1. Children--Legal status, laws, etc. 2. Children’s rights. I. Freeman, Michael D. A.
K639.C483 2011
341.4’8572--dc22
2011000992
ISBN 978 90 04 19049 8
Copyright 2011 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing,
IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP.
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Fees are subject to change.
CONTENTS
Introduction ................................................................................................1
Why It Remains Important to Take Children’s
Rights Seriously
Michael Freeman ....................................................................................5
The Participation Rights of Premature Babies
Priscilla Alderson, Joanna Hawthorne and Margaret Killen .............26
Towards a Theory of Children’s Participation
Nigel Thomas .........................................................................................48
Is the Honeymoon Over? Children and Young People’s
Participation in Public Decision-Making
E. Kay M. Tisdall ..................................................................................72
The Principle of Non-Discrimination in the Convention
on the Rights of the Child
Samantha Besson ..................................................................................85
The Synthesis of Age and Gender: Intersectionality,
International Human Rights Law and the
Marginalisation of the Girl-Child
Nura Taefi ............................................................................................118
Children and Religion under Article 14 UNCRC:
A Critical Analysis
Sylvie Langlaude .................................................................................156
Mainstreaming Children’s Rights in, to and Through
Education in a Society Emerging from Conflict
Laura Lundy ........................................................................................191
Fostering Inclusive Societal Values Through Law
Lee Ann Basser and Melinda Jones ...................................................218
vi contents
Beyond the Supermarket Shelf: Using a Rights Based
Approach to Address Children’s Health Needs
John Tobin ............................................................................................253
Breastfeeding – A Human Rights Issue?
Michael C. Latham .............................................................................288
‘He’ll learn it on his body’: Disciplining
Childhood in Canadian law
Anne McGillivray ................................................................................311
Legal Reform and Attitudes Toward Physical
Punishment in Sweden
Joan E. Durrant ...................................................................................366
Protecting Children’s Rights in Africa: A Critique of the African
Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child
’Dejo Olowu .........................................................................................395
Estonian Children’s Perceptions of Rights: Implications
for Societies in Transition
Susan P. Limber, Vahur Kask, Mati Heidmets,
Natalie Hevener Kaufman and Gary B. Melton ..............................406
The Sociology of Childhood in Relation
to Children’s Rights
Berry Mayall ........................................................................................429
Rights Flow Downhill
Katherine Hunt Federle ......................................................................447
The Century of the Child Revisited
Jeroen J.H. Dekker ...............................................................................477
Janusz Korczak – His Legacy and its Relevance
for Children’s Rights Today
Gabriel Eichsteller ...............................................................................496
Index ........................................................................................................515
INTRODUCTION
The world has only woken up to children’s rights relatively recently.
There was a children’s liberation movement in the 1970s, but this soon
disappeared. Its main protagonists, John Holt and Richard Farson are
barely read today. More significantly, there is a world endorsement of a
package of rights for children in the United Nations Convention on the
Rights of the Child. This came to fruition, after a lengthy process of
negotiation and compromise in 1989. Only the U.S.A. and Somalia
have not ratified this.
In 1989 there was little children’s rights literature. Ellen Key had
been consigned to the library store, and Janusz Korczak sadly had been
forgotten. Their ideas were kept alive in a treasure-house of a volume
which Philip Veerman compiled and the publisher of this volume pub-
lished. For those not familiar with Korczak, there is an excellent intro-
duction in Eichsteller’s paper in this book.
In the early 1970s Hillary Rodham, now Clinton, had written that
children’s rights were a slogan in search of a definition. And it was not
unfashionable at the time to cite Goldstein, Freud and Solnit to the
effect that the main right children had was the right to autonomous
parents.
The Convention, whatever its faults and its limitations (some of these
are analysed in a recent article by Philip Veerman) was an eye-opener.
Not only did it swiftly become a measuring-rod to test the world’s
response to children, but it encouraged thinking about children’s lives
from a range of disciplines. One of the pleasures of editing the Interna-
tional Journal of Children’s Rights is that I receive submissions from a
vast repertoire of intellectual sources.
More has been written about children, childhood and children’s
rights in the last 20 years than in the rest of history. There are more
university courses focusing on children now than ever before.
The IJCR has been a major player in all this. Its impact is worldwide.
It has established itself as the leading journal in the field, much as
Childhood has in childhood studies. It grew out of a conference in Israel
in 1990 on the Ideologies of Children’s Rights. It was–and is–the brain-
child of Philip Veerman, then in charge of Defense for Children
International in Israel. There were a few faltering steps–the first editor

dropped out before an issue was produced–but the journal was able to
2 introduction
produce its first issue in 1993, under the joint editorship of Geraldine
van Bueren of Queen Mary, University of London and myself. Geraldine
dropped out in 1997, and the journal has since been edited by me,
assisted by a distinguished international advisory board.
The journal is now in its 18th year, and is flourishing. To commemorate
the 20th anniversary of the Convention coming into operation, and of
the first World Summit on Children, there is a Special Issue of the jour-
nal, edited by the Chair of the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the
Child, Yanghee Lee, and this volume, which is offered as a sample of the
sort of work the journal has been producing in these formative years.
The journal has expanded. In the early years it ran to more than 400
pages. The 2009 volume has 688 pages. It contained thirty articles writ-
ten by thinkers from twenty countries. It contained a Special Issue (on
children’s rights in post- Communist Europe). Over the years the jour-
nal has published a number of special issues on subjects ranging from
children’s health issues to participation, and from corporal chastise-
ment to food and nutrition rights. A deliberate focus has been to open
up our attention to what is happening to children across the globe. So,
just to cite 2009 as an example, there were articles on Bulgaria, Ghana,
Italy, Romania, South Africa, Ukraine and Yemen. Articles have always
come from the full range of intellectual disciplines: in 2009 these
included law, philosophy, sociology, political science, child studies,
global affairs, literature.
Putting together this commemorative volume was both pleasurable,
as revisiting the past can often be, and invidious as making a selection
inevitably leads to excluding articles that others think should be
included. In the end the choice must be personal. I believe, neverthe-
less, that the collection contains a representative sample of the best of
the journal. There is both theory and practice. A range of subjects is
covered. Some of the articles are ones which are frequently cited, whilst
others are less well known.
Theory plays a prominent part in the collection. It remains impor-
tant to put the case for children’s rights. There are still those who deride
the very idea. Guggenheim’s book What’s Wrong With Children’s Rights
(note the absence of a question mark) received substantial attention,
particularly in the United States. Since this journal believes in engaging
with critical thinking it has published and will continue to publish arti-
cles which are critical of children’s rights. The work of Laura Purdy is
one example. And Guggenheim was scrutinised in a review article by
Federle.
introduction 3
The case for children’s rights is to be found throughout this collec-
tion, but in particular by Freeman (chapter 1) and Federle (chapter 17).
The history of children’s rights features in chapter 18, where Ellen Key
is remembered, and in chapter 19, where the work of Janusz Korczak is
celebrated.
The U.N. Convention contains four General Principles. The non-
discrimination principle in Article 2 is explored by Samantha Besson
in chapter 5. The collection offers a particular emphasis on the partici-
pation rights of children, which are the subject of Article 12. Nigel
Thomas offers a theory of participation in chapter 3, Priscilla Alderson,
Joanna Hawthorne and Margaret Killen in chapter 2 offer us insights
into the abilities of even the youngest and most vulnerable–premature
babies–to participate, and Kay Tisdall (in chapter 4) discusses what
is counted as legitimate forms of participation, and what is not so
regarded. Tisdall’s paper is the conclusion to a Special Issue on Theo-
rising Children’s Participation, which included articles from Brazil,
India and South Africa.
The relationship between women and children and their rights is
relatively neglected. Shulamith Firestone’s advice to feminists was
soon forgotten. The journal has twice recently focused on these issues.
Choosing between Erica Burman and Nura Taefi was not easy, but only
one could be included, and I have opted for Taefi, because she has had
less exposure, and because it is student work, so vital to the future of
children’s scholarship. Her paper in chapter 6 is on intersectionality,
which is likely to be new to many in the children’s rights field.
The rest of this collection is devoted to specific issues relating to dif-
ferent children’s rights.
Children and religion features in chapter 7. Education, in the context
of a society emerging from conflict is the subject of Laura Lundy’s
paper in chapter 8. The child with disabilities is the focus of chapter 9.
There is much more attention to these children now than there was
when Lee Ann Basser and Melinda Jones published this paper. There is,
of course, now a Convention. The health care needs of children is the
subject of chapter 10. This is also at issue in chapter 11, where the focus
is on breastfeeding as a human rights issue. I prescribe this paper to my
Masters’ students–I prescribe most of the papers in this collection–and
it always provokes controversy, with students often divided on gender
lines.
The child’s right to be free from physical assault in the name of
correction has gathered momentum, though it has stalled in the
4 introduction
immediate past. Even so, it is now unlawful to hit children in 29 coun-
tries, mainly in Europe. Anne McGillivray writes (in chapter 12) about
Canada, where, as in the U.K., there is now a compromise non- solution,
and Joan Durrant (in chapter 13) about Sweden, which took the lead in
1979. The literature on this subject is now vast, but both these pieces
remain eminently recommendable, and thus find a rightful place in
this collection. There was a Special Issue of the journal in 2003–Durrant’s
article was part of this–which explores other aspects of the debate.
The U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child (note child, not
children) is not the only international instrument normatively endors-
ing children’s rights. The African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of
the Child offers an opportunity to see children from a different per-
spective. It is a common criticism of the U.N. Convention that it is
Eurocentric. The differences between the two models make a compara-
tive study of the two a valuable introduction to law and culture. The
journal is publishing increasingly articles about Africa (two about
Ghana will be appearing in 2010 or 2011). Chapter 14 is a critical intro-
duction to the African Charter.
An increasing amount of work is being done on how children per-
ceive their rights. The journal is due to publish one soon on children in
Zimbabwe and their perceptions. This collection has one such example
of this work. It is by Susan Limber and colleagues (in chapter 15). It is
about children in Estonia, and the interest is heightened because it
focuses on a society during a major period of transition.
The journal has published two articles on children’s rights and chil-
dren’s studies. This collection reprints as chapter 16 Berry Mayall’s
paper. The relationship between the sociology of childhood and the
children’s rights movement continues to provoke interest (a recent issue
of Childhood discussed it in a leading article). Each has much to learn
from the other, as I argued in the journal back in 1998, and as I do in a
volume to be published in 2011.
It is tempting fate to make predictions about the state of children’s
rights scholarship in 18 years from now. But one prediction is sadly
safe, and that is that the case for children’s rights will still need to be
put, and that the same battles will be being fought.