Show/Hide Menu
Hide/Show Apps
anonymousUser
Logout
Türkçe
Türkçe
Search
Search
Login
Login
OpenMETU
OpenMETU
About
About
Açık Bilim Politikası
Açık Bilim Politikası
Frequently Asked Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
Browse
Browse
By Issue Date
By Issue Date
Authors
Authors
Titles
Titles
Subjects
Subjects
Communities & Collections
Communities & Collections
International Perspectives on the State-as-Parent: Naive Idealism or Reluctant Pragmatism
Download
index.pdf
Date
2016-03-01
Author
Dixon, John
Welbourne, Penelope
Metadata
Show full item record
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License
.
Item Usage Stats
15
views
3
downloads
Too many children remain at risk of harm, regrettably, in all too many societies. This is despite the almost universal acceptance of the 1990 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). Its intention, arguably somewhat naively, is to create two state imperatives: to protect children against threats of harm; and to advance their welfare. Governments, however, have evidenced a pragmatic reluctance to meet these challenges, perhaps a product of conflicting community expectations on the appropriate role of the state, combined with a scarcity of public resources. For the state to meet its UNCRC obligations requires it to have three crucial capacities. The first is the governance capacity to be able to take the necessary actions to prevent or correct the harm experienced by children. The second is the organizational capacity to direct sufficient resources to do what needs to be done in a timely manner, in a culturally sensitive way, and without causing them other forms of harm. The third is the epistemological capacity to know when it is in the best interests of children for the state, in the public interest, to stop particular child practices or to separate particular children from their families in order to provide the care and protection they need. These are the ultimate challenges facing governments if they wish to achieve the vision of the state as the protector and promoter of the best interests of children that is embedded in the UNCRC, to which almost all states have committed.
Subject Keywords
Sociology and Political Science
URI
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/66146
Journal
POVERTY & PUBLIC POLICY
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1002/pop4.131
Collections
Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Article