The Youngest Citizens

Book Review: The Youngest Citizens: Children’s Rights in Latin America 183 The Youngest Citizens: Children’s Rights in Latin America Amy Risley (2020) New York & Abingdon, Oxon, U.K.: Routledge, 138 pages $160.00 USD (hardcover), $46.95 USD (softcover), ISBN 9781138745438 In this excellent book, Amy Risley provides a comprehensive analysis of the state of children’s rights in Latin America. In nine well-referenced chapters, the author casts a contrasting spotlight on the strategies employed by child rights activists to augment the safety, protection, and empowerment of children and the array of ongoing ideological and structural barriers that remain to be overcome. In the first chapter she offers a synopsis of significant advances in children’s rights that have occurred throughout Latin America, largely the result of the combined impact of an influential global regime on childhood and the advent of strong domestic child rights movements and alliances. This has led to a “tectonic shift” in discourse away from the idea of children as passive “minors” wholly dependent on family or other forms of institutional authority to that of children as “young citizens” capable of articulating their own interests and exercising agency both independently and collectively. The author admits to “cautious optimism,” however, by acknowledging that changes in discourse, and the policy reforms and enactment of progressive legislation that have ensued, are nonetheless confronted with deep-seated structural constraints. In so doing she lays out the book’s central argument concerning the integral connection between the struggle for children’s rights and the challenges that must be overcome for the long-term wellbeing and stability of societies as a whole. The author begins the second chapter by examining the historiography of childhood and the incremental manner in which theories of human rights gradually vanquished the unfounded assumptions concerning childhood as a natural state of unformed development necessitating close adult oversight and direction. In the wake of the Industrial Revolution in Europe and North America, advocacy for children as rights holders slowly emerged and progressed through three “waves,” beginning in the 19th century with an emphasis on saving children from abuse and exploitation, followed throughout much of the 20th century by concerns for child protection, and into the contemporary era with heightened attention directed towards children’s empowerment. This latter wave has been stimulated by a flurry of studies that came to be known as the “new sociology of childhood” and by wideranging advocacy and negotiations by governmental and nongovernmental actors alike that culminated in the adoption and near-universal ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). As Risley points out as she concludes the chapter, the CRC represented a “giant step forward” that has been particularly influential in the promotion of children’s rights throughout Latin America. In the third and fourth chapters, Risley offers a detailed analysis of successful strategies of child rights advocacy, focusing specifically on the examples of NGO-led mobilization in Argentina and Uruguay. In both countries advocacy included the promotion of international child rights principles as encapsulated in the CRC, but in Book Review: The Youngest Citizens: Children’s Rights in Latin America 184 ways that resonated with the specific historical, economic, and socio-cultural realities of each country. Rather than accentuating international trends that might suggest that foreign ideas and norms were being foisted on Latin American countries by external forces, NGO campaigns have commonly “framed” children’s rights as being aligned with national priorities and values. In Argentina, for example, emulating the strategies of previous Argentinian social movements that addressed serious human rights violations of the past, child rights organizations have formed alliances with other national social advocacy groups, and with Argentinian researchers, journalists, and supportive legislators. Accordingly, they have been able to bring high-profile attention to the gaps that exist between internationally accepted principles of children’s wellbeing and the realities of Argentina’s unmet social obligations for destitute children. This dual approach of framing children’s rights as an Argentinian cause around which national alliances can be developed has helped to reduce misguided perceptions concerning poor children as a social menace living in “irregular situations,” and has thereby generated landmark reforms designed

Human rights · Ideology · Latin Americans · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Children's Rights and Participation · Gender Studies · Law · Medicine