As of today I am organizing a two-weekly study hour with children’s rights specialists, discussing recent academic works on children’s rights. On this blog I will share the texts and preparation of the study hour, so that anyone who is willing can study along.
Today we had our first meeting and it was most inspiring! We discussed Jenks’ Childhood, chapter 4. Jenks wonders why in recent decades child abuse seems to have greatly risen. He argues that child abuse is a phenomenon of all times, and that what has changed is our attitude towards childhood.
For Defence for Children jurists, one of the interesting questions was how our view of childhood influences our work. Do we work for the protection or empowerment of children? Are children’s rights controlling/protecting or empowering? Is Jenks right when he argues that in the child, we preserve the lost meta-narrative of society (a story of love and innocence)?
Here you can find the text that we read and my introduction, including discussion questions (last document in Dutch). So anyone who’s interested can join our studies at home :-)!
