Rehabilitation Centres receive both children in need of protection and youths who have committed a criminal offence. In all cases, the Centre's mandate is to help them readjust to society. In pursuing this mandate, educators resort to measures of seclusion, time-out or withdrawal, whether for therapeutic or disciplinary reasons. All of these measures, however one wishes to call them, may be effected through confinement. The children are thus liable to be locked into their own room, into a specially designed time-out room or into a seclusion room, the time of confinement lasting anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours. Some rehabilitation programs, calling for measures such as time-out or withdrawal, currently allow for the possibility of confining a child in a locked room for some twenty hours a day, for several consecutive days. / From a legal standpoint, confinement may constitute a form of therapy, or it may constitute a disciplinary measure. Depending on the reason for its implementation, seclusion therefore falls under different legal provisions. Yet in all cases, seclusion remains a coercive measure with a strong punitive component. It would therefore be logical for all confinement measures to be governed by the same set of legal rules. Furthermore, the framework provided by health services legislation, which is based on consent to treatment, does not properly account for such measures. Regulating the disciplinary powers of educators, especially their power to lock up children in closed rooms, would be an approach better suited to the actual needs of children.

Despite being a strong advocate for children’s rights in the international community, Sweden has received critique from the Committee on the Rights of the Child regarding the high number of children who have been removed from their families and that are currently living in foster homes. Previous research has not dealt with the issue of children’s rights in foster care placement processes in Sweden, nor has it included Sweden in discourse analyses on children’s rights, or sufficiently explored the relationship between discourse and implementation of the UNCRC. I use theories on discourse and translation in order to provide a comparative analysis of the articulations of children’s rights relevant for foster care placement processes in the UNCRC, and on the national and local level in Sweden. The analysis points to both similarities and differences in the discourses and identifies six aspects of the Swedish discourse that make certain activities in foster care placement processes possible, desirable and inevitable.

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States of America, there has been a shift in the policies of many countries to combat terrorism. Terrorism has had a devastating effect on many citizens of the world. These include „the enjoyment of the right to life, liberty and physical integrity of victims. In addition to these individual costs, terrorism can destabilise Governments, undermine civil society, jeopardise peace and security, and threaten social and economic development.‟1 All of these also had a real impact on the enjoyment of human rights. Therefore the fight to curb further terrorist attacks is paramount. States are charged with the responsibility of curbing terrorism by their citizens. But with responsibility comes obligations to the citizenry.2 States should therefore not engage in policies or actions that further deprive others of their enjoyment of human rights. This is well put by Hoffman when he says „history shows that when societies trade human rights for security, most often they get neither.

Demokratija reikalauja visų ar bent jau daugumos visuomenės narių dalyvavimo sprendžiant vienus ar kitus klausimus. Todėl aktyvus vaikų dalyvavimas yra naudingas ne tik jiems patiems, bet visai visuomenei - vaikai turi turėti galimybių būti aktyviais dalyviais. Nors vaikai ir pripažįstami savarankiškais teisės subjektais, jų teisių įgyvendinimas priklauso nuo tėvų. Todėl būtina kreipti išskirtinį dėmesį tėvų elgesiui su vaiku, jų požiūriui į vaiko teises ir vaiko, kaip aktyvios, dalyvaujančios asmenybės auklėjimui. / Democracy requires participation of all or at least the majority of the members of the public in addressing all kinds of issues. Accordingly active participation of children is beneficial both for themselves and the whole of society - children should have opportunities to be active participants. Although children are recognized as independent legal entities, exercise of their rights lies with parents. It is therefore necessary to pay particular attention to the behaviour of parents with regard to their children, their approach to the child rights, and the education of a child as an active participating individual.

Expressions of youth citizenship are evident in young people’s actions, behaviours, and embodied experiences. Young people in late (post) modernity occupy a liminal position when it comes to citizenship. On the one hand, they are conceived of as rights-bearers with particular responsibilities to themselves and others; at the same time, they are presumed to belong to a family unit that will take care of their major interests. Young people with government care experience (henceforth referred to as “youth-in-care”) practice citizenship at an intersection of private and public in their lives as wards of the state. They are expected to belong to foster families of some sort, even though this kind of living situation is often temporary, fragmented, and unsettling. In an era of self-responsibility and rights claims, being unmoored from traditional family life illustrates some of the inherent tensions of practicing citizenship. While youth citizenship literature has proliferated in the last two decades, the focus has often been on rights and responsibilities, rather than the differences in citizenship practices amongst youth themselves. Expressions of citizenship by youth-in-care are contextualized by internal and external factors that shape these young people’s lives. Furthermore, the history, politics, cultural difficulties and social implications of child protection systems have received much attention from academics and policy-makers, but research on youth-in-care as citizens remains rare. This dissertation explores the gap in the literature by looking at the ways that citizenship is complex, multilayered, and fluid for this group of young people. A qualitative research design is used to examine how youth-in-care practice citizenship in their daily lives. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with participants between the ages of 14-24 in Greater Victoria, all of whom had been in government care at some point in their lives (n= 20). Transcripts were coded using an analytical hierarchy strategy. Findings indicate that the social group in question – youth-in-care – practiced citizenship in a multitude of ways, and that it was important to take situational or social context into consideration when examining how they expressed citizenship. Analysis of participants’ narratives revealed three types of citizenship practices, namely self-responsible citizenship, dissenting citizenship and reluctant citizenship. Expressions of citizenship were navigated through experiences of self-responsibility and rights, belonging and exclusion, and risk and resilience. Citizenship, therefore, is best understood through behaviour and actions, as well as enacted and embodied by participants themselves. For youth-in-care, citizenship practices matter in their relationships with others, the ways they experience belonging and exclusion, and the discourses of resiliency and vulnerability which emerge from their narratives. The dissertation concludes with a consideration of the implications of the findings for the literature on youth citizenship, focusing on the ways that youth citizenship is contextualized by experiences with family, peers, institutions, and the government care system. / Graduate / 0628 / 0626 / 0630 / kbutler@uvic.ca

<p>Although the concept of human rights is very much accepted as part of human existence throughout the world today, there is still much controversy surrounding the idea of rights for children. The Constitution, however, not only recognises the fact that like all other members of society, children are capable of being bearers of human rights but emphasises also the special position of children in society by granting them specific rights in the Constitution. Health rights are particularly important for children as the entitlements and obligations created by such rights are necessary for children to realise their full potential. In this thesis the entitlements and obligations attached to children'shealth service rights in the COnstitution are explored.</p>

Thesis (MSocSc)--University of South Australia, 1996

This thesis explores children's perceptions of their ability to participate in decisions that directly affect them following parental separation. Taking a postmodern approach, the thesis argues that the concepts of 'the child' and 'childhood' are social constructs produced by discourses that have arisen from historical accounts of the position of children in 'adult' society. The knowledge thus produced constructs children as incomplete beings, vulnerable and unable to understand significant issues such as those associated with parental separation. Consequently, children are marginalised, 'othered' and denied the opportunity to participate in decisions that directly affect them. After reviewing the ways in which discourses operate to subjectify children in this way, the thesis explores an alternative construction of children as competent and resilient, able to participate with their adult counterparts in decision-making activities. The potential for the provisions of both the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Australian Family Law Reform Act 1995 to reconstruct children in this way is explored. Reviews of the literature indicated that Australian children had not been included in research and discussions about their involvement in decisions that directly affected them. Consequently, this research undertook in-depth interviews of sixteen children between the ages of 7 and 17 years. Their views about their abilities to participate in decisions that directly affect them are reviewed in relation to the different discourses identified in the literature. The extent to which children?s understandings reflect these discourses is considered. The thesis argues that much is still to be achieved. A review of the findings includes an account of the difficulties experienced in recruiting children for this project and suggests that the social construction of children continues to position them as vulnerable and incompetent. It is argued that the constructs of 'competence', 'age' and 'maturity' are not useful indicators of children's abilities to make decisions; thus, a 'new' construction of children, based on greater adult understanding of their unique experiences and understandings, is suggested. In relation to decisions that affect children following parental separation, the thesis makes a number of suggestions that support an exploration of creative initiatives that reflect the children's views. / PhDSocialScience

Thesis (M.A.)--Saint Mary's University, 2000. / Title from pdf t.p. (viewed May 12, 2008) Published on the Library and Archives Canada Web site. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.) - Carleton University, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 115-131). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.