Children and Reparation: Past lessons and new directions (original) (raw)
What We Know about Ethical Research Involving Children in Humanitarian Settings
Innocenti Working Papers, 2016
Publications produced by the Office are contributions to a global debate on children and child rights issues and include a wide range of opinions. For that reason, some publications may not necessarily reflect UNICEF policies or approaches on some topics. The views expressed are those of the authors and/or editors and are published in order to stimulate further dialogue on child rights. The Office collaborates with its host institution in Florence, the Istituto degli Innocenti, in selected areas of work. Core funding is provided by the Government of Italy, while financial support for specific projects is also provided by other governments, international institutions and private sources, including UNICEF National Committees.
“For Every Child, the Right to a Childhood” UNICEF (2019)
Child Care in Practice, 2019
2019 signals the 30th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC, 1989). From its inception the CRC was heralded as a “touchstone” for children’s rights, encompassing civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights (Lansdown, 2010). Children were deemed to be rights holders, entitled to protection, suitable provision and capable of making decisions about their own lives. Article 3 of The Convention prioritised the “best interests of the child” as the primary consideration governing all actions concerning children and Article 12 placed obligations on signatory states to assure that the child, who is capable of forming his or her own views has the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting them. Article 12.2 prescribed that the child’s views are not just to be listened to but to be taken account of and acted upon in all decisions affecting the child, and this obligation extends to matters of research. Modern theories of children and child...
Children in Crisis : Ethnographic Studies in International Contexts
2013
This volume brings together ethnographers conducting research on children living in crisis situations in both developing and developed regions, taking a cross-cultural approach that spans diff erent cities in the global North and South to provide insight and analyses into the lifeworlds of their young, at-risk inhabitants. Looking at the lived experiences of poverty, drastic inequality, displacement, ecological degradation and war in countries including Haiti, Argentina and Palestine, the book shows how children both respond to and are shaped by their circumstances. Going beyond conventional images of children subjected to starvation, hunger, and disease to build an integrated analysis of what it means to be a child in crisis in the 21st century, the book makes a signifi cant contribution to the nascent fi eld of study concerned with development and childhood. With children now at the forefront of debates on human rights and poverty reduction, there is no better time for scholars, policymakers and the general public to understand the complex social, economic and political dynamics that characterize children's present predicaments and future life chances.
The Child as Vulnerable Victim: Humanitarianism Constructs Its Object
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Over the last one hundred years, humanitarian agencies have considered children primarily through the lens of vulnerability. Advocacy for attention to children’s agency and for their participation has burgeoned since the 1980s without shifting the powerful hold that assumptions of vulnerability have had over the policy and practices of humanitarians. This article seeks to denaturalise the conceptualisation of children in contexts of emergency as primarily vulnerable (would-be) victims, placing it in historical and geopolitical contexts. It offers a critical analysis of both conventional humanitarian thinking about vulnerability per se and the reasons for its continued invocation in settings of displacement and political violence. Drawing upon examples from the Mau Mau rebellion against British colonial rule in 1950s Kenya, and current humanitarian response to the situation of Palestinian children living under Israeli occupation, this article relates the continued dominance of the vu...
In philosophy, historically, much attention has been given to the central question of philosophical anthropology, namely, ‘what constitutes a human being?’. However, it seems that the answers to this question are in fact answers to the question ‘what constitutes the adult human being?’, or even ‘what constitutes the adult, male human being?’. In discussing this question, an important group of human beings has often been left out, which currently consists of more than 25% of the world’s population, and this is precisely the group on which I want to focus: children. The uncertainty on the meaning of the concept of childhood is reflected in international law. For example in the 1989 Conventions on the Rights of the Child,“a child” is defined as every human being below the age of eighteen years, ‘unless under the law applicable to the child, majority is attained earlier’ (article 1). The main question for the research is ‘What is the meaning of the concept of childhood and how does it relate to children’s rights?’. It includes an analysis of the concept of childhood, based on mainly philosophical literature and field research. The second chapter focusses on the meaning of childhood in relation to international children's rights.
Child maltreatment: A global issue
Language, speech, and hearing services in schools, 2007
C hild abuse, neglect, and trauma are global problems. Abuse has been defined as when "a person willfully or unreasonably does, or causes a child or young person to do, any act that endangers or is likely to endanger the safety of a child or young person or that causes or is likely to cause a child or young person (a) any unnecessary physical pain, suffering or injury; (b) any emotional injury; or (c) any injury to his or her health or development" (Chan, Elliott, Chow, & Thomas, 2002, p. 361). Trauma may involve witnessing domestic parental or community violence or warfare or experiencing severe loss in natural disasters. The United Nations (UN) maintains that violence is one of the most serious problems affecting children today. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 40 million children below the age of 15 experience abuse and neglect requiring health and social care. At any given time, 300,000 child soldiers, some as young as 8 years, are in armed conflicts in more than 30 countries. In Central and Eastern Europe, 1.5 million children live in orphanages that provide minimal care. Two million children are exploited through prostitution and pornography (UNICEF, n.d.). In the United States, reports of child abuse and neglect have been increasing by approximately 10% a year since 1976 (Children's Defense Fund, 1999). Although fewer parents are reporting a belief in the use of corporal punishment, a 1995 survey in the United States showed that 5% of parents admitted to disciplining their child by hitting the child with an object, kicking the child, beating the child, or threatening the child with a knife or gun. Violence can have severe implications for children's development even when it does not lead to obvious physical injury or death. Violence affects children's health, their ability to learn, and even their willingness to go to school. Much violence toward children is hidden. Children may fear reporting the abuse, or both the abuser and child may see nothing wrong with the violence, viewing it as justifiable punishment. Because of concern regarding violence to children, in 2001, the United Nations called for a comprehensive global study of violence against children. A number of children who are seen by speech-language pathologists (SLPs) are likely to have experienced some type of abuse, neglect, or trauma for several reasons. One reason that the caseloads of SLPs are likely to have a number of children who have experienced abuse and neglect is because children with disabilities are more likely to be abused than are children without disabilities (Sullivan & Knutson, 2000). A second reason is that children who experience abuse, neglect, or trauma are more likely to develop disabilities that affect their cognitive and language abilities (Coster & Cicchetti, 1993; Osofsky, 1995). Abuse is more common among children who were born premature or of low birth weight, who have had prolonged illnesses, or who have developmental disabilities (Lynch, 1976; Martin, 1976). This increase in abuse of children with disabilities may be related to the increased stress their families experience as a result of the additional and unrelenting needs of these children or adults' lack of understanding of the children's limitations. Sullivan
Global crises of childhood: rights, justice and the unchildlike child
Area, 2002
This paper traces how the notion of childhood changes as part of other social transfor mations. Globalization and the disillusion of public and private spheres are related to contemporary crises of childhood. Visible working children and child violence are highlighted as examples of unchildlike behaviour that suggests indeterminacy in the constitution of the global child. Issues of children's rights and new forms of justice are raised as potentially liberatory ways of viewing the crisis.