This new Routledge Law Handbook publishing March provides cutting-edge overview of classic research, current research and future trends of Children's Rights. Find out more about the group of leading international experts which have been involved and contributed to this authoritative volume and make sure you get a copy of the book for yourself at the special introductory promotion price.

Routledge International Handbook of Children’s Rights Studies

Edited by Wouter Vandenhole, Ellen Desmet, Didier Reynaert, Sara Lembrechts

Since the adoption of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) children’s rights have assumed a central position in a wide variety of disciplines and policies.

This handbook offers an engaging overview of the contemporary research landscape for those people in the theory and practice of children’s rights. Click here to continue reading more about the Handbook...

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Meet the Contributors

Géraldine André is a Postdoctoral Researcher for the National Fund for Scientific Researcher in Belgium. She is currently visiting fellow at London School of Economoics, and in Belgium, she is affiliated to Pôle Sud and the Lasc at the University of Liège. Her PhD on working class youth and vocational education has been recently published (PUF, 2012). Her postdoctoral research focuses on the case of African child workers in small-scale artisanal mining. With this focus, she aims at analyzing the effects on the legislation of children’s rights on the evolution of processes of socialization in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Writes Chapter 7. Children’s rights from an anthropological perspective: Critiques, resistances and powers

José Aylwin is a lawyer specialized in human rights in Latin America, with special focus on indigenous peoples’ rights. With studies at the Faculty of Law of the University of Chile in Santiago (1981) and at the School of Law of the University of British Columbia (Canada), where he obtained a Master in Laws degree (1999), he has researched and published for different academic and human rights institutions internationally. He acted as Director of the Instituto de Estudios Indígenas of the Universidad de la Frontera in Temuco, Chile (1994-1997). He currently acts as Co-director of the Observatorio Ciudadano (Citizens’ Watch), an NGO aimed at documenting, promoting and protecting human rights in Chile. He is part of the board of directors of the North-South Institute in Canada and of the National Council of the National Institute for Human Rights of Chile. He teaches Indigenous Peoples’ Rights at the School of Law of the Universidad Austral de Chile, in Valdivia, Chile.

Writes Chapter 22. Natural resource exploitation and children’s rights

Pablo Ceriani Cernandes is the Coordinator of the Migration & Human Rights Program, Center of Human Rights of the National University of Lanús, Argentina (UNLA). He is Professor of Human Rights of Migrants (University of Buenos Aires –UBA– Law School; Master on International Migration Policies –UBA; and Master on Human Rights –UNLA). He is also a PhD candidate at the University of Valencia, Spain. At Lanús University, he coordinates a research team that carries out a number of projects on migration and human rights. Several of these initiatives are focused on the rights of children in the context of migration, both at global, regional (Latin America and Caribbean) and national level (Argentina, Mexico, Guatemala). Since 2009, he provides technical assistance to the Argentinean office of UNFPA on sexual and reproductive health of women and adolescent migrants. He has also been consultant of UNICEF (New York Office) on the rights of child migrants' rights. From 2002 to 2006, he coordinated the Legal Clinic for Immigrants and Refugee’s Rights (University of Buenos Aires) and Centre for Legal and Social Studies, CELS.

Writes Chapter 19. The human rights of children in the context of international migration

Katrien De Graeve holds a Master degree in African Languages and Cultures and a PhD in Comparative Sciences of Culture, both from Ghent University, Belgium. From September 2013 till July 2014 she is working as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Collegium for Advanced Studies in Helsinki. Her research interests are situated at the intersection of critical kinship and family studies and the anthropology of migration and postcoloniality, with transnational adoption, foster care and guardianship of refugee minors as specific empirical focus.

Writes Chapter 9. Children’s rights and gender studies: Gender, intersectionality and the ethics of care

Ellen Desmet is a post-doctoral fellow at the Law and Development Research Group of the University of Antwerp and the Human Rights Centre of Ghent University (Belgium). Before, she was a research and policy staff member at the Children’s Rights Knowledge Centre, and taught anthropology of law at the University of Leuven. She complemented her law studies with a master in Cultures and Development Studies and a master in Development Cooperation, and holds a PhD in Law from the University of Leuven. Her research interests include human rights, children’s rights, indigenous peoples’ rights, legal anthropology and research methodology.

Writes Chapter 1. Introduction: A critical approach to children’s rights, Chapter 22. Natural resource exploitation and children’s rights, Chapter 23. Conclusions: Towards a field of critical children’s rights studies

Karl Hanson is Professor in Public Law at the Children's Rights Unit, University Institute Kurt Bösch (IUKB) in Sion, Switzerland. He received his PhD in Law from Ghent University, Belgium, where he worked as a Researcher at the Children’s Rights Centre and as a Senior Researcher at the Human Rights Centre. His publications and main research interests are in the emerging field of interdisciplinary children’s rights studies and include international children’s rights advocacy, child labour and working children, juvenile justice and the role of independent national children’s rights institutions. He teaches at the IUKB in the Master interdisciplinaire en droits de l’enfant (MIDE). He is also the Programme Director of the Master of Advanced Studies in Children's Rights (MCR) and a member of the Directive Committee of the European Network of Masters in Children’s Rights (ENMCR).

Writes Chapter 18. Child labour, working children and children’s rights

Sara Lembrechts is fulltime staff member at the Children’s Rights Knowledge Centre (KeKi), where she is responsible for the collection and dissemination of children’s rights research, as well as for policy advice to the Flemish government. She has a MA in Childhood Studies & Children’s Rights from the Free University of Berlin (Germany), as well as an LLM in International & European Law and a BA in European Studies, both from the University of Maastricht (Netherlands). She has experience as an intern with Amnesty International in New Zealand, with UNICEF in Geneva and with the Belgian National Commission on Children’s Rights (NCRK). In addition, she has regularly assisted KeKi with projects and events since 2010.

Writes Chapter 1. Introduction: A critical approach to children’s rights, Chapter 23. Conclusions: Towards a field of critical children’s rights studies

Els Leye is a post-doctoral researcher at the International Centre for Reproductive Health of the Ghent University in Belgium, where she coordinates the Programme on Harmful Cultural Practices. The main topics of research of this programme include female genital mutilation, honour related violence, forced marriages, hymen reconstructions, cosmetic genital surgeries. Els Leye holds a master in Socio-Cultural Sciences and a PhD in Comparative Sciences of Culture. She has been and is actively involved in policy development on female genital mutilation in Belgium and Europe, among others in collaboration with the European Institute for Gender Equality, European Parliament, Belgian senate and the Flemish Forum Child Abuse. She is author of various peer reviewed papers and book chapters, and is founding member of the European Network for the Prevention of FGM and La Palabre vzw.

Writes Chapter 17. Female genital mutilation in Europe from a children’s rights perspective

Ton Liefaard is Professor of Children’s Rights (UNICEF Chair) at Leiden University, Law School, in the Netherlands. His research focuses on the meaning of international children’s rights for the (legal) position of children at the domestic level, with particular attention for child in conflict with the law, children in need of alternative care, children deprived of their liberty and children’s participation. He teaches students and professionals on various children’s rights themes and coordinates the Leiden Summer School on International Children’s Rights. He regularly works as a consultant for international and national organizations (e.g. Council of Europe, UNICEF) and governments. Furthermore, he is a member of the editorial board of the Dutch Journal of Family and Juvenile Law (Tijdschrift voor Familie- en Jeugdrecht) and the Flemish Journal of Youth and Children’s Rights (Tijdschrift voor Jeugd en Kinderrechten). He also is a deputy juvenile judge at the Criminal Court of Amsterdam.

Writes Chapter 14. Juvenile justice from a children’s rights perspective

Berry Mayall is Professor of Childhood Studies at the University of London. Over the last 40 years she has carried out over 20 research projects, mostly focused on the lives and experiences of children and their parents. She has helped to develop the sociology of childhood, over the last 30 years, and has written many books and papers on the subject.

Writes Chapter 5. Children’s rights and the sociology of childhood

Francine Mestrum has a PhD in social sciences from the Université Libre de Bruxelles. She is a researcher, international consultant and activist and works mainly on poverty and inequality, social development and globalisation. She is chairwoman of ‘Global Social Justice’ (www.globalsocialjustice.eu), an association working on the promotion of transformative universal social protection and the Common Good of Humanity. She represents Imodev (Institut du Monde et du Développement – Paris) in Belgium and is a member for CETRI (Centre Tricontinental, Louvain-la-Neuve) of the International Council of the World Social Forum. She published various books in Dutch, French and English on development and development cooperation, poverty and international taxes.

Writes Chapter 20. Child poverty in the context of global social development

Anne Quennerstedt has researched value issues in education for almost 15 years, and during the last 7 with a specific focus on children’s rights issues in education. She is one of Sweden’s leading children’s rights researchers, and currently heads a Swedish Research Council financed project. Quennerstedt is engaged in international networking in her field, and is co-convenor for the European network ‘Research in Children’s Rights in Education’, which meets annually at the conference ECER. Quennerstedt is also a member of the advisory editorial board for the peer-reviewed journal International Journal of Children’s Rights.

Writes Chapter 12. Education and children’s rights

Didier Reynaert holds a bachelor in child nursing and a master in special education (orthopedagogics). In 2012 he obtained his PhD in Social Work at Ghent University with a dissertation on children’s rights education and the role of the children’s rights movement in implementing the U.N.-Convention on the Rights of the Child. As lecturer social work at the Faculty of Education Health and Social work of the University College Ghent, he is involved in several research projects in the field of child and youth policy and children’s rights. He is member of the board of the Flemish Children’s Rights Knowledge Centre. Previously, he worked for the Flemish Children’s Rights Coalition, the Child Legal Centre and as a civil servant at the Ministry of the Flemish Community on youth protection.

Writes Chapter 1. Introduction: A critical approach to children’s rights, Chapter 6. Children’s rights from a social work perspective: Towards a lifeworld orientation, Chapter 23. Conclusions: Towards a field of critical children’s rights studies

Rudi Roose is Professor at the Department of Social Welfare Studies at Ghent University, where he teaches, among others, youth criminology & juvenile justice and social work theories.

Writes Chapter 6. Children’s rights from a social work perspective: Towards a lifeworld orientation

Wouter Vandenhole teaches human rights and holds the UNICEF Chair in Children’s Rights – a joint venture of the University of Antwerp and UNICEF Belgium – at the Faculty of Law of the University of Antwerp (Belgium). He is the spokesperson of the Law and Development Research Group and chairs the European Research Networking Programme GLOTHRO. He has published widely on economic, social and cultural rights, children’s rights and transnational human rights obligations. Vandenhole is a founding member of the Flemish Children’s Rights Knowledge Centre and co-convener of the international interdisciplinary course on children’s rights.

Writes Chapter 1. Introduction: A critical approach to children’s rights, Chapter 2. Children’s rights from a legal perspective: Children’s rights law, Chapter 23. Conclusions: Towards a field of critical children’s rights studies

Bruno Vanobbergen received his PhD in Educational Sciences at Ghent University (Belgium). He published several national and international articles in journals and chapters in books on the history of childhood, focusing on processes of commodification, medicalization and educationalization. Bruno Vanobbergen was lecturer at Groningen University (The Netherlands) and visiting fellow at the Department of Childhood Studies of Rutgers University (US). He is member of the editorial board of Paedagogica Historica. Since June 2009 Bruno Vanobbergen is the Flemish Children’s Rights Commissioner. He is also guest professor of Childhood Studies at Ghent University.

Writes Chapter 4. Children’s rights and childhood studies: From living apart together to a happy marriage

Eugeen Verhellen is emeritus professor of Juvenile Justice Law and Children's Rights at Ghent University (Belgium). He is the founding director of the Children's Rights Centre at the university (awarded the Human Rights Award of the League for Human Rights, 1995). He was the co-ordinator of the European Erasmus/Socrates programme on Children's Rights and of the UNESCO-programme CRUN (Children's Rights Universities Network), and was the organiser of the annual International Interdisciplinary Course on Children's Rights. Professor Verhellen has been a consultant on children's rights to the Council of Europe and the United Nations and to international non-governmental organisations. He still is lecturing on children’s rights and juvenile justice at different universities. He is co-founder and member of the editorial board of The International Journal of Children's Rights (Martinus Nijhoff) and of A commentary on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Martinus Nijhoff). He has published widely in Dutch, French and English on children's rights issues.

Writes Chapter 3. The Convention on the Rights of the Child: Reflections from a historical, social policy and educational perspective