Social Policy and Childhood: An Overview
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child
It has been suggested that ‘the Convention of 1989 and the World Summit of 1990 are watersheds in the history of children’ (1992). Although no everyone is so optimistic about its potential ( 1989) and it is clearly still too early to assess its full effects, the United Nations Convention on the Rights if the Child is arguably the most significant development in UK policy towards children since 1945. Ratified by the UK in December 1991, the Convention sets out a number of detailed standards and principles that are intended to govern the way states deal with children.
Under the terms of ratification, governments were required to ‘make the principles and provisions of the Convention widely known by appropriate and active means to adults and children alike’ (Article 42). Guidelines from the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child advocated the widest possible popular participation and public scrutiny of the whole process. In the event, there has been almost no debate in the UK and it is likely that very few people – adults or children – are aware of the Convention’s existence. The response of the government in the UK has been justifiably described as ‘more of a whimper than a bang’ ( 1992).
In its first Report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, the UK government declared that ‘ratification of the Convention did not require any amendment to UK legislation’ (1994). When it comes to the detail of the specific articles of the Convention this is an arguable position. Many of the provisions are fairly broadly drawn – deliberately so, to encompass the circumstances of all nations. The Convention accepts that due account should be given to ‘the traditions and cultural values of each people’ and makes allowance for ‘the national conditions and means’ of signatories.
This being so, it is not difficult to make out a case that UK policy is in line with most of the specific provisions of the Convention Even at this level, however, the opposite can also be argued, and we shall examine a number of the specific provisions in later chapters. Certainly, the government’s report on its progress in implementing the Convention has come under attack from a number of voluntary organisations (8 February 1995) and been dismissed as ‘a deeply complacent document, dishonest by omission and providing no recognisable picture of the state of our children’ (1995,).
Whatever its direct impact on UK legislation and policy, however, we would argue that the Convention’s real potential lies in its underlying principles and values. Because, despite the government’s claim that ‘the UK’s perception of children’s rights and needs is closed aligned with the philosophy of the Convention’ ( 1994), we would suggest that the core values of the Convention are significantly different from those that have shaped policy in the UK.
In particular, we would cite the following elements of the UN Convention which differentiate it from UK policy:
� children are visible and central
� children are people with inalienable human rights
� children have a right to special assistance
� children’s own views should be given due weight
� greater emphasis on state rather than family responsibility.
Children’s central position
Although it is the least tangible difference in emphasis, the fact that the UN Convention places children squarely in the centre of the picture is perhaps the most fundamental shift in perspective. The recognition of the child’s position within the family is present in the Convention in the Preamble and again in Article 18. The latter out lines the duty of states to provide support for families to assist them in their child-rearing. But nothing in any part of the Convention detracts from the fact that it is the rights of the child that are at issue. As (1989) has pointed out:
It represents adult society’s public declaration to children and young people that they are valued members of the community with shared civic obligations and deserving, as well as owing, respect to others. (p. 60)
Children are people
On the face of it, nothing could be more banal than the claim that children are people in their own right. In fact, the claim carries with it two importance implications. The first is that children are valued for what they are now rather than what they might become in the future. In contrast with so much of the UK debate on policy for children there is no reference in the Convention to ‘investment’ as a justification for children’s rights. The second is that children, as people, must be entitled to human rights on the same basis as everybody else. As Penelope Leach has argued, the phrase ‘children’s rights’ is needed not because we are identifying a separate category of rights but because children have been excluded from those which are universally human ( 1994).
The importance of the stress on children’s human rights, as opposed to other more frequently applied concepts such as their ‘welfare’ or ‘needs’, is that rights confer dignity and respect. As (1992) has suggested, ‘because children have lacked the moral coinage of rights, it has been easy to brush their interests aside.’ A good example of this is the case of corporal punishment. If children possess the same human rights as adults, then by definition they should enjoy the same protection from being hit by another person. Yet in the UK children have no protection from corporal punishment within the family – an issue we shall discuss further in Chapter 8.
Accepting children’s rights as human beings does not mean that they should be treated as adults. The Convention differs from the more extreme children’s rights perspectives which emphasise children’s autonomy (1978; 1975). Children’s vulnerability is recognised with the consequent right of protection, including occasionally protection from the consequences of their own actions. Children are not, as (1977) put it, ‘abandoned to their rights.’
A number of feminist writers have taken issue with the concept of ‘rights’, on the basis that it involves an individualistic and masculine view of the world ( 1982). However, it is important to stress that the UN convention, and the model of children’s rights it espouses, goes a long way to meet this criticism in that it does not see children as autonomous individual but rather promotes the fact that they have an important interdependent relationship with their family.
The emphasis (Article 3) on ‘the best interests of the child’ clearly preserves a strong element of paternalism within policy towards children. In this respect, the Convention does little to solve the dilemma of the conflict the protection of children on the one hand and respect for their autonomy as human beings on the other. Indeed, some of its critics suggest that the Convention errs too far in the direction of children’s welfare rather than their rights ( 1989).
We would agree with (1992), however, when he argues that protection and autonomy should not be seen as a dichotomy. Any programme of children’s rights must recognise and reflect both principles. The virtue of a strong emphasis on children’s rights to respect and dignity, which is central to the values underpinning the Convention, is that it confines paternalism, even if not totally eliminating it.
Children’s right to special assistance
This principle, enshrined in the preamble to the Convention, was further endorsed at the 1990 World Summit for children, where 159 nations assented to the proposition:
That the lives and normal development of children should have first call on society’s concerns and capacities and that children should be able to depend on that commitment in good times and in bad (1990)
The idea that children should have first claim on society’s resources is not a novel one. It would certainly be given lip service within UK social policy. The important point to stress, however, is that, by locating the principle within a framework of children’s rights, it does not depend upon either a sentimental image of childhood or on an ‘investment’ motive. Children are entitled to have first claim because they are essentially victims of adults. As (1987) put it: ‘children are by definition weaker and more vulnerable than adults – their suffering is both greater and more clearly the responsibility of adults.’
The point is well underlined by the evidence, presented to UNICEF by (1990), relating to the effects on children of social and economic policies in the UK during the 1980s. Bradshaw concluded: ‘Children have borne the brunt of the changes that have occurred in the economic conditions, demographic structure and social policies of the UK.’ Children’s relative powerlessness to protect themselves from the consequences of decisions taken by adults justifies their right to special treatment. This is not a theme that is reflected either explicitly or implicitly in UK policy on children.
Giving weight to children’s views
Article 12 of the Convention grants the child the right to have his/ her views heard and be ‘given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child’ and it is true that this principle has found its way into UK social policy and is enshrined in the Children Act 1989. As we have already indicated, though, the scope of the Children Act 1989 is relatively narrow. It certainly does not ensure that children’s voices are hard in all areas of social policy. Indeed, the principle of giving the child a voice is remarkably muted in UK social policy – even in areas such as education.
The United Nations appears to have been unaware of the irony involved in producing the Convention without any reference to the views of children. But perhaps this serves to underline the fact that rights on paper are only a first small step in improving children’s lives. Bringing about the institutional changes required to make the rights a reality is more problematical. This is particularly true when it comes to giving children a voice in matters that concern them. This is an issue we shall return to in our final chapter.
Emphasis on state rather than family responsibility
The Convention does, as we have already pointed out, recognise ‘the responsibilities, rights and duties of parents’ in relation to children (Article 5). The Preamble affirms the importance of the family to children’s welfare – to an extent that some critics find unacceptable ( 1989). Nevertheless, there is a clear difference in emphasis, with regard to the respective responsibilities of family and state, between the Convention and the values underpinning UK policy. There is no sense in the Convention that the family is primarily a private institution. The responsibility of the state to support families caring for children is emphasised much more strongly.
The difference between the UN and UK philosophies is most clearly illustrated by comparing the approach to early years’ childcare. This is cited specifically in the Convention as a service that should be provided as a right for all children of working parents, but UK legislation and policy establishes no such right. Instead, as we shall discuss in Chapter 6, local authorities have a duty under the Children Act 1989 to provide day care for the much more restrictive category of ‘children in need’.
Conclusion
There is considerable scope for debate as to whether in practice the UN Convention will advance the cause of children in the UK. Most of the sections dealing with substantive rights are necessarily unspecific and open to wide variation in interpretation. Children would have more to gain, perhaps, if the Convention were to open up greater discussion about the principles and core value that shape social policy in the UK. The contrast between the commitment to respect for the child, which is so central to the UN Convention, and the indifference to children which runs through UK policy is surely the key lesson.
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