Child Protection Perspective

Child protection is not a new concept..

Some attempts to protect and uphold the rights of the children can be traced to the 1924 Geneva Declaration on the Rights of the Child and the 1959 Declaration on the Rights of the Child. Other international treaties on child protection that have taken centre stage include the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and the 1996 Hague Convention on the protection of the child.

Most countries have shown their commitment to uphold the children’s rights by ratifying the Convention on the Rights of the Child except Somalia and the United States of America.

It is gratifying that almost all the countries have ratified the UNCRC and have pledged to make laws and repeal existing laws to make them consistent with the provisions of the Convention. However there is caution that, " the Convention on the Rights of the Child (the Convention) notwithstanding its near universal acceptance, must in many respects be viewed as a promising starting point on the long and winding road to the global improvement of the status of children" (Rwezaura, 1989:p). He argues that the world community is quite diverse socially, economically and culturally, and therefore cannot understand or interpret the Convention on the Rights of Child the same way.

There will always be culturally determined differences in the understanding of what sexual exploitation or abuse or what kind of work is risky to the child or what conduct, customs and practices are not in best interests of the child (An-Naim, 1992).

The methods and processes to protect and uphold the rights of children may vary quite considerably from one culture to another and from region to region. However, the underlying values and philosophy constituting the foundation of human dignity and integrity are largely cross-cultural and universal and hence the ability of the international community to reach normative consensus on the rights of the child as stipulated in the Convention (Ncube, 1998).

References
An-Naim. A, ‘and Goldbasch, 1992. Human Rights in Cross Cultural Perspectives, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia. Ncube, W. 1998. (ed), Law, Culture, Tradition and Children's Rights in Eastern and Southern Africa. Brookfield, USA: Ashgate.Rwezaura, B. " Changing community Obligations to the Elderly in Contemporary Africa", Journal of Social Development in Africa 4, 1989.