Childhood and modernity: a social constructionist reflection onto the dilemma of ‘child execution’ within the Islamic context

Abstract

The 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) further strengthened the rhetoric behind the child protectionist agenda which was initiated and implemented by modern welfare state policies in the West during the early decades of the 20th century. Accordingly, the majority of the member states responded positively to the UNCRC by increasing the minimum age of criminal responsibility, as well as making further and ongoing improvements within the juvenile criminal justice system. Reflecting on the dilemma of ‘child execution’, with a particular focus on Iran, this paper looks at the implications of Shariah law in defining the minimum age of criminal responsibility within the Islamic context and argues that, although childhood in Islamic countries has – to a large extent – undergone the same structural changes which led to the emergence of the contemporary protectionist agenda on childhood globally, legal perceptions concerning ‘child execution’ within the Islamic context continue to act upon a pre-modern trajectory of childhood and children's agency in the modern era.