Decolonising Children's Rights

Paloma Cesare

Alright folks, welcome back to more analysis about the impact of colonolism. So, today Agneiszka and I are diving into something I’ve been wrestling with ever since my visit to some schools in regional Queensland: who actually gets to define “children’s rights”? The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child—it’s almost universally ratified, something like 196 states on board. It’s presented as this global gold standard, right?

5b8776d2

Yeah, and I mean, on paper, it looks... kind of like a miracle. Everyone except the US has signed on. But there’s such a huge focus in the literature on how the UNCRC, even with all that buy-in, is essentially exporting Western, or you might say Euro-American, ideas onto everyone else. It’s like—here is what ‘childhood’ is, here’s what you’re all supposed to do with your children, never mind your traditions, histories, or family structures. I always go back to that image from the article—the Hokusai wave looming over Mount Fuji—a sort of intellectual tidal wave flattening all these different ways of being a child.

Paloma Cesare

Yeah, and you can really feel that tension on the ground. Like, I remember, after a day at this one school, sitting with community elders. They had a whole different approach to what children owe their family, their kin, their community. Some of the aunties questioned whether the things in the UNCRC—like “best interests” or even the definition of a child as under 18—make sense for them. For them, responsibilities and belonging come before, sort of, standing alone as an ‘individual.’ You see the same patterns playing out globally. The literature talks about a sort of new imperialism. These Western frameworks, instead of uplifting everyone, can serve to “beat” the Global South, sidestepping the history—colonialism, deprivation, power imbalances—that shaped the world in the first place.

5b8776d2

And even the celebration of near-universal ratification gets complicated, doesn’t it? Some states signed on maybe just to look good internationally or to unlock development aid. Others faced pressure. There’s all this talk about loopholes or different standards for Western and postcolonial countries during ratification. So, the very roots of the treaty reinforce unequal power, rather than genuinely balancing things. We can celebrate children’s rights, but we’ve got to pause and ask: who is really being represented here, and who’s designing the rules?

5b8776d2

So one of the biggest conflicts in the UNCRC—and you see this over and over in the critiques—is its emphasis on the individual child. It's this almost atomised view, ripped out of the social context. I grew up in Poland, and later worked in Australia, and honestly—the expectations of what children should be doing are just... radically different. I’m not saying one is better, but in Poland, children are expected to contribute to the family—maybe not so much as in rural Africa, but it’s there. Then here in Australia, there’s a lot more focus on the child’s independence. And the UNCRC, mostly, is coming from that individualist West.

Paloma Cesare

That’s where you get these real tensions. Like, if you take the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child—it’s pretty explicit. Kids have duties to family, community, even the nation. That’s in the Charter! It’s a direct challenge to this universal “rights-holder-is-an-individual” approach. Oh, and let’s not forget those big debates about child labour or harmful cultural practices. Saw this in the reading: things like child labour are demonised across the board—like, ‘all child work is a violation’—but for many families, working is a survival strategy and can sometimes help pay for school.

5b8776d2

Right, and then you get into these sticky areas—female genital mutilation versus cosmetic surgery, tattoos, whatever. The West is very quick to define some practices as “savagery” or “mutilation,” but not others, even when the outcomes might not be so different. The law is used harshly against Female Genital Mutilation, but there’s much less scrutiny of, say, surgeons on Harley Street performing surgery for beauty, including genital surgery. It’s such a moral double standard. And meanwhile, the Sustainable Development Goals, for example, are used as tools to “rescue” children from labour without asking why the work is there, or what kids and families actually see as harmful—or helpful.

Paloma Cesare

Yeah, like, there’s this sort of moral superiority embedded in Western responses, instead of working through what children’s realities are, what actually matters to them, what role work or family plays in their lives. It reminds me a bit of what we discussed a couple of episodes back—when we talked about migrant and refugee families. Well-intentioned support doesn't always translate, especially when you miss the local culture or community context. And that’s not just a bureaucratic mistake—that’s a colonial legacy, shaping whose knowledge counts and who gets to define what’s “harmful.”

5b8776d2

Exactly. If you don’t start by acknowledging these differences, you’re just reinforcing those old hierarchies under a humanitarian banner. Whether it’s children expected to help out at home, or young women negotiating their own realities—you need a framework that actually fits the diverse contexts children live in, not one-size-fits-all from Geneva or New York.

Paloma Cesare

Alright, so let’s talk about ways forward. How do we start to genuinely decolonise children’s rights? Decolonial theory and something called TWAIL—Third World Approaches to International Law provide a framework to do this. Basically: stop pretending the Western experience is universal. Start amplifying scholarship out of the Global South, and create space for multiple epistemologies—ways of knowing and understanding children’s lives.

5b8776d2

I might be wrong on the details, but the gist is—decolonisation isn't about chucking Western theory out the window, but about consciousness. Recognising how colonialism, empire, and racism shape what counts as knowledge. And then actively building alternatives—more plural, more community-embedded. The article really hammers home how academia, and legal research in particular, is dominated by the Global North. So we need deliberate strategies: more resources for Global South scholars, breaking down language barriers, supporting research infrastructures outside the West.

Paloma Cesare

I totally agree, and it resonates with what I’ve seen in my PhD work—you know, young women’s voices and their lived experiences should be front and centre in shaping frameworks. Because if you don’t make space for those realities—if you don’t even see the trauma or gendered violence as pivotal—then whatever rights you write on paper, they’ll never work in practice. We need to keep pushing this idea: children’s rights must be something created by many, not imposed by few.

5b8776d2

And, look, it’s not just a legal thing, is it? It’s about how we teach, whose research gets published, who’s at the table. It means building intellectual bridges, not walls—sharing power, not just “consulting” and carrying on the same way. Otherwise, we’re just recreating Hokusai’s wave again and again.

Paloma Cesare

Thanks, Agneiszka. I think this is such a critical point for students and social workers, particularly in child protections: keep questioning the frameworks. Keep making space for other voices, including those from the communities and children themselves. We’ll wrap it there for now—there’s so much more we could say, but let’s save it for a future episode!

5b8776d2

Absolutely, Paloma. Thanks for today, and thanks to everyone listening. Let’s keep reflecting together—see you next time!

Paloma Cesare

Bye, Agneiszka. Take care everyone, and we’ll be back next week with more critical conversations. Goodbye!