Childhood Welfare and the Rights of Children

Chapter
First Online:
Part of the Children¿s Well-Being: Indicators and Research book series (CHIR, volume 4)

Abstract

This chapter discusses social rights as children’s rights, recognized as such in the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). It is well known that the CRC represents an important advance on previous international advocacy instruments on children’s rights, especially regarding participation. However, provision rights have also entered the CRC, with specifications of the contents of these rights as well as the obligations of national states and parents. The chapter presents an overview of human rights as citizenship rights before analysing the dimensions of provision rights for children. Some results are reported from a study in which children were asked about their feelings and opinions on welfare in general and their expected well-being in particular. It is concluded that there is an implicit agreement conferring main responsibility for the well-being of children to their parents. As a result, the welfare situation of children depends mainly on the cultural, social and economic position of their parents—meaning that they may be as wealthy or as poor as their parents are. Although provision rights for children are recognized, national states tend to protect them only weakly.

Keywords

Social Welfare State Parti Child Labour Universal Declaration Periodic Health Examination 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Faculty of Political Science and SociologyComplutense University of Madrid, Ciudad UniversitariaMadridSpain

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