7 - Beyond the Convention

Summary

The CRC provides us with a normative framework, nothing more. And it is a framework, not the only one. There has been a tendency to assume it offered a definitive programme, and required only attention to implementation, putting the Convention into practice, examining obstacles, establishing institutions (for example, ombudswork), debating incorporation (Lundy et al., 2012). This is despite the fact that we know the Convention is largely about the perceived needs of children in the Global North (Harris-Short, 2003) and might look very different if children themselves had had input into its provisions (Lundy et al., 2015). Despite Article 12, the motivating force behind the Convention was the ‘image of the child as victim’, with the street child then the representative icon (Ennew, 2002).