Children's Rights

The course presents an overview of different declarations on children's rights in a historical perspective. It discusses the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and its implications for children's lives in different parts of the world. Children's lives and welfare in light of changing policies and processes of globalisation will be explored. Among additional topics to be addressed include gender and girls' rights, emerging issues on the rights of minority-group children (e.g. the rights of street children, the rights of refugee children etc.), children as social participants in the economic, social and cultural reproduction of society, the role of NGO in the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, assessments of national reports on children's rights, migration and ethnicity, childhood, time and space, childhood as symbolic space, etc. Through nuanced discussion, the course also addresses the competing discourses on children as autonomous beings or as dependent social becomings.

The main objectives of the course are to provide students with knowledge on: * Discourses on children's rights. * Global discourses on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and children's rights to provision, protection and participation. * Regional conventions on children's rights (e.g. the African charter on the rights of the child). * The dynamic relationship between globalisation processes and children's lives in different parts of the world.

Total lecture hours: 20. Supervision of paper, individually and/or group based. The teaching language is English.