Child Rights-based Approach Research Articles

Outline of a child rights-based approach in early childhood education & care services

According to the new directions in Child and Family Welfare services (Premoli, 2012), ECEC services in Europe are also increasingly characterized by new emerging orientations, perspectives, and approaches, which recur in different national contexts, driven by the influence of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and of the policies to support integration promoted first by the European Community and then by the European Union. In particular, reference is made to: the affirmation of an educational and pedagogical attention to the child as a whole (the whole child); the emergence of anti-deterministic paradigms such as resilience, the increase of strengths, and the pursuit of beauty; listening to the children’s point of view and promoting their participation; the intercultural approach; the growing attention to evaluation in order to improve quality and effectiveness; finding solutions to the contrast between the rights of the child and the rights of adults (parents or educators); the involvement of families; the openness towards local communities and territories; the consultation with the other services (wrap-around services) and the composition of professional and disciplinary views; the development of strategies that favour continuity between the various school levels. In Herczog’s perspective (2012a), the adoption of an approach based on child rights is a strategy which, among other things, allows for an immediate return on investments in the field of ECEC. It therefore seems necessary to define the Child Rights-Based Approach as an essential professional skill for professionals working in ECEC services.

In safe hands: child health data storage, linkage and consent for use.

While there is potential for societal benefit from linkage and integration of large datasets, there are gaps in our understanding of the implications for children and young people, and limited inclusion of their views within this discourse. We aimed to understand the views and expectations of children, young people and their parents/caregivers in Aotearoa New Zealand regarding child health data storage, linkage and consent for use. This qualitative study included 24 Māori and non-Māori children, young people and their families across five focus groups, recruited from a community-based health service. A mixed Māori and non-Māori research team facilitated participant recruitment and data collection. Child, adolescent and parent/caregiver groups were held separately. Sessions were audio-recorded and the verbatim transcripts were analysed thematically. We identified three themes: (i) I am more than a number: seeing patients as people; (ii) In safe hands: data as power; and (iii) What are your intentions with my data? Consent as an active relationship. A key challenge was the reductive and stigmatizing potential of data integration for minoritised groups. Hypothetical discussions of data sharing and linkage were contingent on trust between the participant and the health professional, with negotiated data ownership. Consent was conceived as an active relationship needing renewal and renegotiation as children reached adulthood. Current consent processes for ongoing use of child data require further deliberation. Without a strong ethical and child rights-based approach to issues of child health data management, consent and linkage, we risk exacerbating health inequities and experiences of breach of trust.

Child Rights during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Learning from Child Health-and-Rights Professionals across the World.

The COVID-19 pandemic underscores the importance of a child rights-based approach to policymaking and crisis management. Anchored in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the 3P framework-provision, protection, and participation-forms the foundation for health professionals advocating for children's rights. Expanding it with two additional domains-preparation and power-into a 5P framework has the potential to enhance child rights-based policies in times of crisis and future pandemics. The study aimed to (1) gather perspectives from child health-and-rights specialists on how children's rights were highlighted during the early phase of the pandemic in their respective settings; and (2) evaluate the usefulness of the 5P framework in assessing children's visibility and rights. A qualitative survey was distributed among child health-and-rights professionals; a total of 68 responses were analysed in Atlas.ti 9 from a multi-disciplinary group of policymakers and front-line professionals in eight world regions. As framed by the 5Ps, children's rights were generally not safeguarded in the initial pandemic response and negatively impacted children's health and wellbeing. Further, children lacked meaningful opportunities to raise their concerns to policymakers. The 5P framework holds the potential to shape an ethical child rights-based decision-making framework for future crises, both nationally and globally.

The utilisation of legal instruments by United Nations actors to restrict the exposure of children to unhealthy food and beverage marketing: a qualitative content analysis of UN instruments

IntroductionUnited Nations (UN) agencies are influential global health actors that can introduce legal instruments to call on Member States to act on pressing issues. This paper examines the deployment and strength of global health law instruments used by UN actors to call on Member States to restrict the exposure of children to unhealthy food and beverage marketing.MethodsGlobal health law instruments were identified from a review of four UN agencies that have a mandate over children’s exposure to marketing of unhealthy food and beverage products namely: the World Health Organization (WHO); the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO); the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) and the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). Data on marketing restrictions were extracted and coded and descriptive qualitative content analysis was used to assess the strength of the instruments.ResultsA wide range of instruments have been used by the four agencies: seven by the WHO; two by the FAO; three by the UNGA; and eight by the UN human rights infrastructure. The UN human rights instruments used strong, consistent language and called for government regulations to be enacted in a directive manner. In contrast, the language calling for action by the WHO, FAO and UNGA was weaker, inconsistent, did not get stronger over time and varied according to the type of instrument used.ConclusionThis study suggests that a child rights-based approach to restricting unhealthy food and beverage marketing to children would be supported by strong human rights legal instruments and would allow for more directive recommendations to Member States than is currently provided by WHO, FAO and UNGA. Strengthening the directives in the instruments to clarify Member States’ obligations using both WHO and child rights mandates would increase the utility of global health law and UN actors’ influence.

Rights from the start: the place of children's rights in clinical dentistry.

In 1989, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child proclaimed children's rights, affording children and young people special protection and assistance. This has implications for many aspects of dentistry, including health service design, policy and research. It is less clear what a child rights-based approach looks like for our day-to-day clinical practice. This article sets out to question what it means to translate upholding children's rights into practical action in dentistry. It further issues the challenge that adults must know about children's rights and help children learn about them and suggests how dental teams could contribute to advancing this agenda.

‘Can we see our voices?’ Young children’s own contributions to authentic child participation as a pillar for sustainability under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC)

ABSTRACT This article demonstrates how implementing a rights-based research methodology can contribute to the theory and practice of climate change research and education with young children. The argument stems from a child rights-based participatory study that sought to explore young children’s own perspectives of Nature under the education right, Article 29 1 (e) of the UNCRC. The study took place over nine-months in an early childhood setting in Ireland. It illustrated that with the necessary resources (time, flexibility in research agenda and a listening adult) children define their own education and participatory rights. Drawing on these insights, and integrating scholarship from children’s rights, early childhood pedagogy, and education for sustainable development (ESD), this article advocates for a methodological approach to climate research and education that foregrounds children’s agency. I argue that children must be positioned as rights-holders within their educational settings and have their views heard and included in curriculum making. I also argue, in virtue of listening within it, that early childhood (EC) pedagogy mutually reinforces authentic child participation. I offer seven key strategies designed with the participants that could be adopted by practitioners wishing to engage in a child rights-based ESD approach; creating a meaningful listening environment, reconceptualising the term ‘expertise knowledge’, taking time for ongoing reflexivity, maintaining an ‘ethical radar’, understanding each other, ensuring meaningful participation, and balancing power dynamics.

Using Tobacco Plain Packaging to Protect the Human Rights of Children

The societal interest of public health protection has driven Australia’s regulation of tobacco products for many years. The recent decision of the World Trade Organization Appellate Body, Australia – Tobacco Plain Packaging, should encourage states to protect supportable societal interests even if they restrict the exercise of intellectual property rights. As the decision suggests that non-World Trade Organization agreements can support tobacco control measures, this article advocates for greater attention towards the human rights implications of these measures. A primary objective of tobacco plain packaging measures is to protect young people, engaging Australia’s obligations pursuant to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The article argues that explicit engagement with children and recognition of their human rights in the development and implementation of plain packaging measures could have strengthened Australia’s defence of its plain packaging measures. It provides novel insights into what a child rights-based approach could mean for the future development of tobacco control measures worldwide.

Children of the Syndemic

The term syndemic was developed by medical anthropologists to “label the synergistic interaction of two or more coexistent diseases and resultant excess burden of disease.” COVID-19 has exposed and exacerbated societal inequalities among children through differential indirect effects on family financial security, social adversity, mental health, and educational access, among other things. Using a child rights-based approach, the review examines how the syndemic has impacted aspects of the life of children, such as healthcare access, educational access, and family economic circumstances. The examples of the impact of the pandemic and existing inequities, the syndemic, given throughout the review are only a snapshot of the broad effects of the pandemic on the lives of children worldwide. Children have been spared by the worst direct clinical effects of COVID-19, but the indirect effects have been severe. Pediatricians and their organizations can contribute by working with non-governmental organizations and advocating for policy decisions at local, national, and international levels, which protect children from the short- and long-term consequences of the syndemic.

Giving children a voice through partnership: a child rights-based approach to the co-design of postgraduate nurse education

BackgroundThere is an increasing need for the voice of children and young people to be more evident in planning and designing services, including the delivery of higher education, for school nurses to ultimately influence service delivery.AimTo raise awareness of the importance of children's rights by embedding them in postgraduate school nurse education to influence school nurse service delivery.MethodsA model was developed through direct partnership with representatives of the Children's Parliament in Scotland. This model facilitated the inclusion of children and young people's opinions in the co-design of postgraduate nurse education in order to incorporate children and young people's rights and opinions and improve the delivery of the school nurse service in Aberdeen.ResultsIn a supported environment, children and young people were able to negotiate relationships with multiagency professionals on an equal basis, building connections and trust with them in partnership, based on their perceptions of school nurses' daily actions and characteristics. Their negotiation of relationships identified various change management categories for improving the delivery of higher education and services.ConclusionsChildren and young people have clear opinions and views when consulted in an inclusive age-appropriate way through rights-based participation. It is important that listening and taking due cognisance of children's voices becomes the norm in influencing higher education, and that children and young people have a direct influence on improving children's services.

Multidimensional Child Poverty from the Child Rights-Based Approach: A Latent Class Analysis to Estimating Child Poverty Groups in Mexico.

The study aims at estimating multidimensional poverty groups among children under five years of age in Mexico. Our analysis is based upon the framework on the Rights of the Child. For this purpose, we focus on identifying different types of child deprivation and the various risk factors that determine child poverty in Mexico, such as the type of locality, ethnicity and the region of Mexico where children live, among others. The study is based on the theoretical notion that children must realize their specific rights, established in the Mexican legal framework, in order to achieve an adequate standard of living and guarantee the well-being and development of children. For this reason, child development has been included as one of the analytical dimensions of poverty, because this has been often discarded in child poverty studies. We support the idea that any violation of social rights means deprivation. The method applied in this research is a conditional latent class analysis and we use covariates which have helped for better predicting the average probabilities of experiencing deprivations in each latent class. Thus, the main objective of the study is to identify groups of children experiencing extreme, moderate and no poverty. The results show that children under five years in Mexico, belonging to the poorest stratum have represented about twenty percent; however, fifty percent of them have experienced moderate poverty and only thirty percent are non-poor. We conclude that universal and targeted policies should be implemented to eradicate multidimensional child poverty.

Unaccompanied Migrant Children’s Rights: A Prerequisite for the 2030 Agenda’s Sustainable Development Goals in Spain and Sweden

Starting from a child rights-based approach to sustainable development, this contribution underlines and compares the discourses in selected Spanish and Swedish migration and education policies on the rights of unaccompanied minors to education and discusses their impact on the enactment of the 2030 Agenda’s Sustainable Development Goals in both countries. Based on critical discourse analysis, this research shows the co-existence of two different discourses: one on unaccompanied minors as global rights holders and the other on unaccompanied minors as foreign citizens. By describing unaccompanied migrant minors as citizens rather than children, international migration agreements make it possible for the Spanish and Swedish governments to deprioritize other international agreements on refugees’ rights, such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the 2030 Agenda. Furthermore, as child rights and sustainable development are mutually reinforcing, the negotiation of rights shows that there are obstacles to accomplishing rights-based Sustainable Development Goal 4 in the 2030 Agenda.

Children’s Rights when Financing Development through Multilateral Development Banks: Mapping the Field and Looking Forward

Abstract Children and their rights are increasingly recognised as an integral part of the global development agenda as set out by the 2030 Agenda and the accompanying sdg s (Sustainable Development Goals). UN Human Rights Council Resolution 34/16 calls for a child rights-based approach to implementing these goals. Aspirations aside, children’s rights are largely invisible when the debates shift to how development is financed. Consequently, a children’s rights-based inquiry into the governance of institutions that finance development, is largely absent. This article seeks to overcome the relative scarcity of critical academic reflection on how and to what extent children’s rights feature in how development projects are financed by multilateral development banks (mdb s). The article first identifies common strands in norms mdb s use to govern themselves, their clients and borrowers. It then proceeds to situate how children’s rights fit into these administrative governance frameworks and goes on to address future perspectives of engagement to address shortcomings.

Using Tobacco Plain Packaging to Protect the Human Rights of Children

The societal interest of public health protection has driven Australia’s regulation of tobacco products for many years. The recent decision of the Appellate Body in Australia – Tobacco Plain Packaging should encourage states to protect supportable societal interests even if they restrict the exercise of intellectual property rights. As the decision suggests that non-WTO agreements can support tobacco control measures, this article argues that greater attention should be given to the human rights implications of these measures. A primary objective of tobacco plain packaging measures is to protect young people, engaging Australia’s obligations pursuant to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Despite this objective, the voices of children have been very quiet in disputes about Australia’s plain packaging measures. The article argues that explicit engagement with children and recognition of their human rights in the development and implementation of plain packaging measures could have strengthened Australia’s defence of its plain packaging measures. It provides novel insights into what a child rights-based approach could mean for the future development of tobacco control measures worldwide.

Volunteer Tourism in Cambodian Residential Care Facilities—A Child Rights-based Approach

Cambodia has experienced a rapid and uncontrolled increase in the institutionalisation of children in the last decade. In this article, we analyse the impact of volunteer tourism on children’s wellbeing in residential care facilities in Cambodia by employing a child rights-based approach. Four articles of the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child are chosen as framework to analyse two bodies of documents. We engage in critical reflections on the impact of volunteer tourism on children’s wellbeing in residential care institutions in Cambodia as it is regulated, described and reported. We provide a critical stance on current debates about the reasons behind institutionalisation; the various linkages between institutionalisation and volunteer tourism to care facilities; the (lack of) competence, training and stability of volunteer tourists in care facilities; the interface between volunteer tourism and corruption; and the ways in which institutionalisation and volunteer tourism reinforce and are reinforced by predominant Western ideas and ideals about childhood.

A Child Rights-Based Approach to Anti-Violence Efforts in Schools

Attention to school violence amongst children has grown over the last decade with increased research, civil society programmes, government policies and legislation to prevent and counter bullying and other types of violence. Yet, there is a major gap in current research and efforts due to the absence of a child rights-based approach (crba). What does a crba to anti-violence efforts involve? This paper provides a rationale in favour of a rights-based approach and then defines a crba.

Court support workers speak out: Upholding children’s rights in the criminal justice system

The prevalence of sexual offences against children in South Africa continues to be among the highest in the world. The quality and accuracy of a child’s testimony is often pivotal to whether cases are prosecuted, and whether justice is done. Child witness programmes assist child victims of sexual abuse to prepare to give consistent, coherent and accurate testimony, and also attempt to ensure that the rights of the child are upheld as enshrined in the various laws, legislative frameworks, directives and instructions that have been introduced since 1994. We draw on information from two studies that sought the perspectives of court support workers to explore whether a child rights-based approach is followed in the criminal justice system (CJS) for child victims of sexual abuse. Findings suggest varying degrees of protection, assistance and support for child victims of sexual abuse during participation in the CJS. The findings revealed that the rights of children to equality, dignity and not to be treated or punished in a cruel, inhuman or degrading way were undermined in many instances. Finally, recommendations are given on ways to mitigate the harsh effects that adversarial court systems have on children’s rights.

A rights and equity-based Platform and Action Cycle to advance child health and well-being by fulfilling the rights of children

The Think and Action Tank (TAT) on Children’s Rights to Health was established in 2013 as an international network of child health advocates. The TAT’s mission is, “To develop, implement, evaluate, and disseminate rights and equity-based strategies, models, and tools to advance children’s health and well-being by fulfilling their rights.” Toward this end, the TAT has developed a conceptual and operational framework to support a human and child rights-based approach to health; and a Platform and Action Cycle (PAC) as a strategy and tool to translate the principles of human and child rights-based approaches to health into practice. The PAC consists of three action steps—contextualizing, assessing, and improving. Through a structured process of generating rights and equity-based statements, indicators, and reports, the PAC establishes a mechanism to engage multi-disciplinary professionals and children themselves in efforts to realize the vision of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Court support workers speak out: Upholding children’s rights in the criminal justice system

The prevalence of sexual offences against children in South Africa continues to be among the highest in the world. The quality and accuracy of a child’s testimony is often pivotal to whether cases are prosecuted, andwhether justice is done. Child witness programmes assist child victims of sexual abuse to prepare to give consistent, coherent and accurate testimony, and also attempt to ensure that the rights of the child are upheld as enshrined in the various laws, legislative frameworks, directives and instructions that have been introduced since 1994. We draw on information from two studies that sought the perspectives of court support workers to explore whether a child rights-based approach is followed in the criminal justice system (CJS) for child victims of sexual abuse. Findings suggest varying degrees of protection, assistance and support for child victims of sexual abuse during participation in the CJS. The findings revealed that the rights of children to equality, dignity and not to be treated or punished in a cruel, inhuman or degrading way were undermined in many instances. Finally, recommendations are given on ways to mitigate the harsh effects that adversarial court systems have on children’s rights.

Court support workers speak out: Upholding children’s rights in the criminal justice system

The prevalence of sexual offences against children in South Africa continues to be among the highest in the world. The quality and accuracy of a child’s testimony is often pivotal to whether cases are prosecuted, and whether justice is done. Child witness programmes assist child victims of sexual abuse to prepare to give consistent, coherent and accurate testimony, and also attempt to ensure that the rights of the child are upheld as enshrined in the various laws, legislative frameworks, directives and instructions that have been introduced since 1994. We draw on information from two studies that sought the perspectives of court support workers to explore whether a child rights-based approach is followed in the criminal justice system (CJS) for child victims of sexual abuse. Findings suggest varying degrees of protection, assistance and support for child victims of sexual abuse during participation in the CJS. The findings revealed that the rights of children to equality, dignity and not to be treated or punished in a cruel, inhuman or degrading way were undermined in many instances. Finally, recommendations are given on ways to mitigate the harsh effects that adversarial court systems have on children’s rights.

The Relationship between Institutional Care and the International Adoption of Children in Europe

The study reported by Shihning Chou and Kevin Browne explored the link between institutional care for young children and international adoption, using a survey of 33 European countries. Official figures were available from 25 countries on the proportions of national versus international adoption within their own countries, together with the number of children under three in institutional care. Results indicate an association between international adoption (both incoming and outgoing) and a high number of young children in institutional care. The evidence suggests that, rather than reduce the number of children in institutions, international adoption may contribute to the continuation of this harmful practice. A child rights-based approach to providing alternative care for children separated from their parents is proposed.