Prelims

Half Title Page

THE ROLES OF INDEPENDENT CHILDREN’S RIGHTS INSTITUTIONS IN ADVANCING HUMAN RIGHTS OF CHILDREN

Title Page

SOCIOLOGICAL STUDIES OF CHILDREN AND YOUTH - VOLUME 28

THE ROLES OF INDEPENDENT CHILDREN’S RIGHTS INSTITUTIONS IN ADVANCING HUMAN RIGHTS OF CHILDREN

EDITED BY

AGNES LUX

Centre for Social Sciences, Child Opportunities Research Group, Hungary

AND

BRIAN GRAN

Case Western Reserve University, USA

SERIES EDITOR

LORETTA E. BASS

The University of Oklahoma, USA

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

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Emerald Publishing Limited

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First edition 2022

Editorial Matter and Selection © 2022 Agnes Lux and Brian Gran

Individual chapters © the authors

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-80117-609-5 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-80117-608-8 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-80117-610-1 (Epub)

ISSN: 1537-4661 (Series)

Dedication Page

To Our Kids

Contents

Abbreviations

About the Editors

Agnes Lux earned degrees in Political Sciences and in Law (Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary). Her PhD thesis was about the child rights movement and independent children’s rights institutions. She worked in the Hungarian Office of the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights (Ombudsman) as a Deputy Head of Department. She worked as Child Rights Education and Advocacy Director of UNICEF Hungary. She teaches at postgraduate programmes of the Eötvös Loránd University and of the Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Hungary. She is an International Consultant on Children’s Rights and Human Rights. Since 2021, she is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Social Sciences, Child Opportunities Research Group, Hungary. She has published academic articles, and contributed to the UN CRC reporting process of Hungary on behalf of the coordinator of the Child Rights NGO Coalition.

Brian Gran, PhD, is a Professor at the School of Law at the Department of Sociology (College of Arts and Sciences) and also at the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, Case Western Reserve University. His scholarship concentrates on human rights, law, and social policy. Over 2020–2021, he is serving as a Jefferson Science Fellow. His research has received support from the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense, British Academy, the Swiss National Science Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Craig H. Neilsen Foundation. He was a Fulbright Scholar to Iceland where he taught a course on children’s rights to the Law School of Reykjavik University. He’s been Chair and Past Chair of American Sociological Association Human Rights Section between 2018 and 2020. Since 2018, he is the Chair of the Children’s Rights Center, Hope for Children. He has contributed comments to the United Nations, published academic and law journal articles, and is the author of The Sociology of Children’s Rights.

About the Authors

Bruce Adamson is the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland and Chair of the European Network of Ombudspersons for Children. He is a Lawyer with over 20 years of experience in human rights. Prior to his appointment as Commissioner, he was a member of Scotland’s Children’s Panel and was a former Chair of the Scottish Child Law Centre. As Commissioner, he helped secure legislative change on the age of criminal responsibility, comprehensive protection for children from physical punishment, and the incorporation of the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child into Scots law. He co-chaired the Rights group of Scotland’s Independent Care Review and has acted as an international expert for a wide range of international institutions including, the United Nations, Council of Europe, European Union, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), and the World Health Organization.

Abdullah Khoso earned his PhD in Sociology and Cultural Studies from the University of Malaya (UM), Malaysia. He also holds a master’s degree in Anthropology from Pakistan’s Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad. He is currently teaching as a part-time Instructor at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, UM. Children’s rights and migrant workers are two of his research interests. Since 2001, he has worked in the field of children’s rights. He was honored to assist Pakistan’s Ministry of Human Rights in drafting the country’s fifth UN Convention on the Rights of the Child report. He has also worked with Save the Children International.

Ursula Kilkelly is a Professor of Law and Director of the Centre for Children’s Rights and Family Law at the School of Law, University College Cork (UCC), Ireland. She teaches international children’s rights law and has an additional expertise in youth justice and detention. She has published several monographs, edited collections, and over 60 journal articles in these areas. She is currently co-editor, with Professor Stefaan Pleysier of KU Leuven, of Youth Justice, the Sage journal. At UCC, she supervises both LLM and PhD students. Her research team undertakes commissioned and awarded research. In 2010, she founded the Child Law Clinic, which provides research services to those litigating children’s rights. Her latest book, co-authored with Emily Logan, on National Independent Human Rights Institutions for Children: Protecting and Promoting Children’s Rights was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2021.

Dr. Katrien Klep is Assistant Professor of children's rights at the Department of Child Law at Leiden University, and Academic Coordinator of the Advanced Master International Children’s Rights. She has two major research interests, how do (human) rights work in practice, and the use of qualitative methods in legal research. Her current research focusses on complaints procedures in youth care at the municipal level in the Netherlands, and the role of Children’s Ombudsmen therein. Moreover, she looks an the impact of Covid-19 (measures) on children’s rights, especially in the Netherlands.

Umbreen Kousar is a PhD student in Anthropology and Sociology at the National University of Malaysia. Her area of interests includes children rights especially children’s right to play (development), right to protection and refugee children. She also has a Masters in Anthropology from Quid-e-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan.

Emily Logan is a Commissioner with the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission and prior to that led two of Ireland’s national human rights institutions over a 16-year period, as Ireland’s first Ombudsman for Children and subsequently as the Chief Commissioner of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission. She is an Adjunct Professor at the School of Law, University College Cork and an Adjunct Professor (Human Rights Practice) at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, National University of Ireland, Galway. Her book, co-authored with Ursula Kilkelly, on National Independent Human Rights Institutions for Children: Protecting and Promoting Children’s Rights was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2021.

Dr. Valérie Pattyn is Assistant Professor in Public Policy and Policy Analysis at the Institute of Public Administration of Leiden University, The Netherlands, and is partially affiliated to the KU Leuven Public Governance Institute, Belgium. She holds a master’s degree in Political sciences, and a bachelor’s degree in Pedagogical sciences. Her research program examines the demands and use of evidence by policy makers. She specialized in policy evaluation as one particular type of evidence, and combines research on the politics of policy evaluation with applied evaluation research in different policy fields. She was involved in the evaluation of the Dutch Children’s Ombudsman.

Dr. Stephanie Rap is Assistant Professor at the research group: Forensic Child and Youth Care, University of Amsterdam. She holds a master’s degrees in Pedagogical sciences (2006) and Criminology (2008, Utrecht University). Stephanie’s research interest lies in the field of the effective participation of children in (judicial) procedures and decision-making. She studies child participation in diverse (judicial and administrative) procedures and settings, such as in youth justice, child care and protection, asylum procedures and in schools. In her research she employs an interdisciplinary approach, combining international children’s rights and child law with knowledge and theory from social sciences. She is a member of the editorial board of the Flemish journal Tijdschrift voor Jeugd en Kinderrechten and the Chronicle of International Association of Youth and Family Judges and Magistrates (AIMJF).

Rita Richter Nunes is a Lecturer at the Hochschule RheinMain and a PhD student. She has an MA in Childhood Studies and Children’s Rights from the Free University of Berlin (Germany) as well as a degree in Law from the University of Lisbon (Portugal). Apart from her PhD research, she worked as a Research Consultant for the German Institute for Human Rights, as well as non-governmental organization’s working with refugee children in Germany. She also worked in children’s rights international projects led by the Queen’s Belfast University (P4P and the Children with Disabilities and their Digital Rights). Her main areas of work and research are children’s rights, childhood studies, child protection, and participatory research.

Zsuzsanna Rutai holds Doctors of Laws (Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary), Master of Laws in Human Rights (Central European University, Hungary), and is enrolled in a PhD program in Law (Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary). She has diverse work experience: she worked in national human rights institution (Ombudsman for Minority Rights of Hungary), international organization (Children’s Rights Division of the Council of Europe), and non-governmental organizations. Currently, she is an independent consultant contributing to projects related to children’s rights protection, child and youth participation, and the protection and promotion of the rights of vulnerable groups (minorities, children in contact with law). She is the author of the background chapters of the Compasito – Manual on Human Rights Education with Children of the Council of Europe discussing various children’s rights issues.

Robin Shura is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Kent State University at Stark. She received her PhD in Sociology from Case Western Reserve University in 2010. She was a postdoctoral scholar at the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for one year, after which she spent eight years on the Sociology Faculty of Hiram College. Her research interests include social inequality as explored through age, aging and the life course and health, illness, and health care systems. Her current research interests include institutionalized long-term care and intercountry adoption of children, among other areas related to age, ageism, and systemic social inequality. She enjoys teaching sociological theory, medical sociology, aging in society, and courses on childhoods.

Ankie Vandekerckhove is a Children’s Rights Advisor. After studying law and criminology (University of Ghent, Belgium), she started working at the Ghent Bar and at the Ghent University Centre for Children’ s Rights. Under the inspiring mentoring of the late Prof. E. Verhellen, children’s rights entered her professional life and never left it ever since. Whether she worked on introducing the children’s rights strain of thought and awareness at Child and Family (a public agency), served 11 years as the first Flemish Children’s Rights Commissioner, was a Policy Advisor at the Flemish Central Authority for Intercountry Adoption or worked at VBJK on diversity and quality in ECEC. Children as rights holders on their own were always the focus of her work. She continued to do so as an independent advisor on children’s rights, for example, the Council of Europe, the European Union and United Nations Children’s Fund and is currently the coordinator of the brand new Flemish “Afstammingscentrum,” a center where adoptees, donor children, and others can get support in their search and their right to know their origins.

Gina Wilson is the Head of Strategy for the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland. She oversees the review of law, policy, and practice in relation to children’s human rights and the meaningful participation of children and young people in the work of the Commissioner. She joined from Scotland’s college sector, where she was the Head of Innovation and Partnerships for national skills development agency CDN. Her main areas of expertise in children’s rights relate to education, justice, and youthwork. Prior to CDN, she worked for the think tank Carnegie UK Trust and the national youthwork agency, YouthLink Scotland; leading national initiatives aimed at improving digital inclusion, and capacity-building youth engagement programs in public health. She is an experienced Children’s Panel Member, former Independent Prison Monitor, and a Trustee of the Digital Xtra Fund.

Preface

Maria Herczog

In more and more countries around the world, different bodies are established to monitor and implement the rule of law, to fight injustice, to ensure good public administration, and to provide opportunities for citizens to file complaints against their governments. In many countries, these responsibilities belong to the Ombudsman office. The roles of the Ombudsman institution vary widely, with some offices covering specific issues, while others’ scopes of activity are much broader and more diverse. The Ombudsman, in line with its original meaning, is representing those living in their jurisdiction. Despite the growing numbers of Ombudsmen, still only a limited number are responsible exclusively for children and prioritizing child rights.

A Children’s Ombudsman, a Children’s Rights Commissioner, a Youth Commissioner, a Child Advocacy Institution, or a similar body is charged with the promotion and protection of the rights of children and young people. Establishment of this kind of office is more than a symbolic expression of acknowledging the important fact that children are entitled to greater attention and visibility. Since the adoption of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UN CRC) in 1989, considerable progress has been achieved at the local, national, regional and global levels in the development of legislation, policies and methodologies to promote the UN CRC’s implementation of children’s rights. Nevertheless, there is still a long way to go for the full acceptance of children’s rights and their proper implementation.

Children’s rights and interests are often overlooked. The key role of the children’s Ombudsman is to speak out on the best interests of children and to ensure they can exercise their rights. A child advocate represents and gives voice to children whose interests and concerns are not being heard. A child advocate strives to obtain justice for those already suffering from any harm, ensuring access to different forms of help and support, rehabilitation and safety.

As children have the right to be heard and have their views taken into consideration, to participate in every decision-making process that may affect their lives, no matter whether local, national, regional or international level, children should be given appropriate opportunities to exercise their rights. The broader human rights system is yet to incorporate children’s views and participation in its work effectively. There is a need for advocates and also institutions supporting and demonstrating that empowering children themselves as rights defenders and strengthening the mechanisms and practices of participation not only is needed, but can and should be achieved.

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC Committee) in its General Comment No. 5 has highlighted that “for rights to have meaning, effective remedies must be available to redress violations” and that “children’s special and dependent status creates real difficulties for them in pursuing remedies for breaches of their rights” (CRC Committee, 2003, para 24). In principle, national systems could address and provide redress for children’s rights violations, but often this is not the case. Therefore, more and better mechanisms should exist at local, regional and national levels as well. Ensuring child-friendly and accessible systems that protect the rights of children where they live, providing them with remedies and strengthening the national justice systems to incorporate their rights and interests, would be the proper way to address these problems.

The Optional Protocol on a Communication Procedure to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (OPIC) elaborated by the CRC Committee entered into force on April 14, 2014. This international treaty aims to provide the opportunity for children or their representatives to submit complaints to the CRC Committee and make the States Parties more accountable. As of August 24, 2021, only 48 States have ratified, 16 have signed but not yet ratified it and 134 have taken no action.

While OPIC can enhance access to justice for children in both theoretical and practical terms, similar to human rights violations against adults, in practice the role of OPIC is first to draw attention to enhancing the possibilities to empower and strengthen local and national human rights and child rights institutions, such as the Ombudsman and Commissioners of Child Rights. These institutions can improve the procedures and bolster access for children and their representatives to file complaints about violations of children’s rights to the UN system. The CRC Committee will contact the Ombudsman, among others, to gather reliable information about the complaint, as well as to ensure a communication channel to learn more about the situation of children in a given context. However, the main role of the OPIC should be to influence the national and local child complaint mechanisms. This OPIC instrument is drawing attention to the possible procedures needed to ensure that children are aware of their rights and, when their rights are violated, opportunities to submit their complaints locally and technical assistance needed to do so. In increasing awareness about the rights of the child and supporting children and their representatives to have access in a safe and child friendly way to complaint mechanisms, child advocates, commissioners for children and Ombudsman hold eminent roles. As complaints often present sensitive issues, a specific channel to make complaints known is needed for children and their representatives. This need not only requires adequate procedures but also awareness raising campaigns, information provided to all groups of children, especially those in the most vulnerable situations with limited access to justice. Ombudspersons, Child Commissioners and Child Advocates can utilize the OPIC as a new and effective tool to enhance the active participation of children while strengthening the national provisions and implementation of the rights of the child.

The past and present activities, projects and programs of the Ombudspersons and the Commissioners for Children this book describes are excellent bases to further develop and enhance the areas covered, as well as inclusion of more and more children themselves in advancing children’s rights and interests. It seems to be an organic development to increasing involvement of children as right defenders in the work of the Ombudsman. These institutions’ advocacy work can give more voice to children and provide the opportunity to be heard.

24 August 2021.

The author is a former twice-elected member and rapporteur of the UN CRC Committee, President of the Executive Committee of Child Rights Connect and currently serves as Policy Analyst at the Institute of Human Services, Columbus, Ohio.

Acknowledgments

We prepared this book to serve as a valuable resource not only for scholars and professionals but also for policy makers and leaders of institutions dedicated to children’s rights and well-being. Another objective we set for this book is that it will serve as a reference point for undergraduate and graduate students whose special field is childhood, children’s rights and protection of children, as well as to inspire students to pursue answers to questions around institutions, law and policy, and children’s rights. We will be pleased that as a result of this book, new advocates, committed practitioners, policy makers, and researchers endeavor to study and improve institutions that advance children’s rights and interests.

We thank our contributors for their extraordinary chapters. We have appreciated the privilege of cooperating with the contributors on our common field of interest, including former and current children’s commissioners. We are grateful to leaders and staff of these independent children’s rights institutions. We admire their commitment to advancing the rights and well-being of children across the world. Our hope is that this volume both acknowledges their hard work while encouraging their continuing service to children and their rights.

We have greatly enjoyed working with our authors, who hail from different time zones from across the world. We are grateful for their collaborations. We are especially honored that Maria Herczog, a twice-elected member of the UN CRC Committee, joined our team and provided an invaluable preface.

We are grateful to our awesome editorial team at Emerald Publishing, especially Ramya Murali, Katy Mathers, Hayley Coulson for their support, quick responsiveness, high flexibility, and strong professionalism. We have a special thank you for Professor Loretta Bass (University of Oklahoma), the Series Editor of Sociological Studies of Children and Youth (SSCY).

And last, but not least, we thank our families for supporting our work, even when this work sometimes occurred over the weekends and late at night.

Our hope is to have contributed to advancement of knowledge around childhood, children’s rights, and interests.

Agnes Lux and Brian Gran