Transcript Has research improved the human rights of children?

Has research improved the
human rights of children?
Or have the information needs of the
CRC improved data about children?
19 September 2008, University of Swansea
Judith Ennew
©
Timor-Leste ‘research evaluation’ of
UNICEF partnerships
• Imposition of ‘conflict
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resolution’ in a world of
ghosts
UNICEF definition of ‘child
protection’
– Protection from abuse,
exploitation and violence
• Partners’ definition
– Protection from malnutrition and
illiteracy
• UN Peacekeeping force and
poverty
November 2007
What is social research?
• Systematic curiosity
– About social life
– To answer ‘research questions/problems’
– For good governance (statistics/monitoring)
Two propositions
• Social research has improved the human
rights of children – independent of the
CRC?
• CRC reporting has improved data about
children?
Or both?
Structure
• Child research1979-2008
• CRC and data on/about children
– Monitoring the CRC
– Data on ‘child protection’
– Rights or wellbeing?
• Rights-based research with children
– Welsh national data on children
– Rights-based role of academic researchers
Child research
1979-2008
1979
• Health
• Psychology
• Education
• Information from and by adults
1980s
• Ethnography of
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childhood
New sociology of
childhood
• CRC drafting
New sociology of childhood
• Helping
• Hindering
• Have no effect
• On the implementation of children’s rights
1990-2008 Childhood or children?
• Sociology of
childhood
• Rehashing childhood
• Childhood counts
• Research
on/for/about/with
children
• No normal childhoods
CRC and data on/about children
• Data on children or national data?
• 1990 Summit goals
• Indicators for monitoring children’s rights
• Information on ‘child protection’
Governments report to
the Committee on the Rights of the
Child
• Committee role and composition
• Country reports from 1992
– Not about children
– Little data beyond health and
education
– Not children-centred statistics
– Not rights-based information
• Monitoring children’s rights – an
unsolved issue
Children discriminated against in
data
Beyond nationality
• All children,
everywhere, without
exception
• Living?
• Or existing?
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• Monitoring the CRC
• Number games
• ILO IPEC SIMPOC
• AIDS orphans
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Inadequate definitions
Misunderstandings about children
Misunderstandings about research
No sharing of concepts
Policy-driven research
Muddled methods and models
And too many of them (PARC, Sm,art thisthat and other)
Fashions
Political and economic interests
‘Quantitative and qualitative’
research and children
• Quantitative
Qualitative
• Questionnaires
• Parents and teachers
• Psychometric tests
• ‘Case studies’ in
‘boxes’
• Drawings used as
report illustrations
Which is ‘best’?
Qualitative or quantitative?
Data quality
Depends on conditions at
the point of data collection
Low birth weight
Quantitative information is essential
• Policy makers and planners need numbers
• Impact monitoring needs numbers
• Children have the right to be properly
researched
• Children’s ‘voices’ and drawings are worth
more than anecdotes and illustrations
• But Without words, numbers mean nothing
Child protection issues…
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CEDC
Street children
Sexual abuse/exploitation
Child workers
Child soldiers
• Still mostly adults
• But children-centred
Muddle 5 Definitions
Anything can be measured
As long as it is properly described
Unscientific method in policybased research
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Non replicable ‘surveys’
Inappropriate methods for children
Single method
No control group
Anecdotes
‘Case studies’
‘Rapid’ assessment
Feel-good participation
Advocacy data and scientific data
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Commercial sexual exploitation of children
Numbers games
Shocking stereotypes
Recognition of a problem
Research
Skewing the abuse field
‘CSEC’
Definitions - for measurement
What ‘counts’ as…
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Childhood
Children with disabilities?
Child protection?
Corporal punishment?
Child/youth/adolescent
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Wellbeing?
Rights or wellbeing?
‘UNICEF’ definition of well-being
in rich nations
• Six dimensions used for
ranking (40 indicators)
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Material wellbeing
Health and safety
Education
Family relationships
Behaviours and risks
Young people’s own
subjective sense of wellbeing
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Jobs and income
Health care and injury
Schooling
Family structure
Sex and drugs and rock’n’roll
According to three adult
criteria
• Health rating
• Liking school
• Life satisfaction scale
Wellbeing = Welfare
No mention of
• Child work/exploitation
• Social justice
• Violence against
children other than
violence between
children
– No violence within the
family
– No violence by teachers
– No abuse…….
Unrealistic view of rich countries - irrelevant in poor countries
Counting the un-measurable?
• Claim that the ‘concept of well-being’ is
guided by the CRC
• ‘The implied definition of child well-being
that permeates this report is one that wil
also correspond to the views and
experience of a wide public’
Who are the members of this ‘wide public’?
Children’s rights to be properly
researched
The right to be properly
researched
• Article 12: Opinion
• Article 13: Modes of
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expression
Article 3a: Standards
Article 36: Other
forms of exploitation
Basic principles of dignity and respect
Children’s right to be properly
researched means
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Participation of children (including as researchers)
Appropriate methods (design and informed consent)
Scientific method
Ethical behaviour of adults (reduce power difference,
accept responsibility)
Violations of same
Systematic use of ‘qualitative’
methods
Can result in scientific
numerical information
Rights-based, scientific, ethical
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Local concepts
Local design
Local researchers
Children’s views and experiences
World Vision Laos and local
government health department
• HIV/AIDS and safe migration
• Children aged 8-14 years
• 20 staff and volunteers with no
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research experience
Five days to train and write
researchers’ manual
Two weeks for data collection in
four villages of two districts
Analysis workshop and on-thejob training in data analysis
Baseline data report two months
after commencement
Where am I coming from?
Lao PDR May 2008
Discrimination in statistics
• Marginalizing vulnerable children
• Obstructing adequate mo9nitoring of CRC
UNCRC 1979 to
the twenty-first century
• 1990 Summit UNICEF driven
– Universal ratification goal
– Summit goals
• 2002 Special Session
– World fit for children
– World fit for us
• Millennium goals
• Study on violence
UNICEF and children’s rights
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Post World War II ‘Children’s Emergency Fund’
Child Survival Revolution
Joined reluctantly in 1988
Information management: management by goals
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Universal ratification
Silver bullet statistics
Summit goals, midterm review, Special Session
Almost no child protection information
Child rights: Public Affairs/CEDC (CNSP)
Monitoring – indicators – MICS
Millennium stimuli to research
on/with/about children
• Reports to the Committee on the
Rights of the Child
– Data needed on ‘protection’ issues
• ‘Rights-based’ programming
Rights-based role of academic
researchers
Millennium stimuli to research
on/with/about children
• Academic progress
– New sociology of childhood
– Children’s geographies
– Children are social actors and subjects of
research (as well as subjects of rights)
– ‘Participatory methods’ (‘children’s voices’)
– Ethics of research with children
21st century research/policy
interface in the Global South
characterized by
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Mutual misunderstanding
Failure to understand rights,
Lack of familiarity with CRC
Lack of familiarity with advances in theories of childhood
and child-research methods
Pet consultants and institutes Gender/women/general
Different organizational goals
Different research goals on both sides (not participatory)
How to commission and how to read research?
Donor-driven topics
Muddle 1
Participation of children in research
‘Participatory methods’?
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‘Methods’ and ‘methodology’
Participatory approach
Basis in practice as well as rights
Feel-good participation
Muddle 2
Scientific method
Note that I do not say ‘methods’
• Scientific method implies a systematic
approach to
– Research questions
– Research tools
– Analysis
– Conclusions
• And scientific research is ethical research
Systematic curiosity
Muddle 3
Models of scientific research
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Children are objects of research
Psy-complex
Medical
Welfare
Pathology
Mistaken notion of physical sciences
Mistaken distinction qualitative/quantitative
From rice to rights
Service based
Needsbased
How much rice?
How many
people?
Where?
How well?
Cost?
Basic needs
Needs assessment
Does the delivery
meet the needs?
Rightsbased
Who is excluded?
Who is not
protected?
What are their
perspectives? And
solutions?
Are children and
their dignity
respected?
From rice to rights – and back
Service based
Needsbased
How much rice?
How many
people?
Where?
How well?
Cost?
Basic needs
Needs assessment
Does the delivery
meet the needs?
Wellbeing- Rightsbased
based
Health
Schooling
Safety
Psychosocial
measures
goal-oriented
Who is excluded?
Who is not
protected?
What are their
perspectives? And
solutions?
Are children and
their dignity
respected?
Consequences for children of being
improperly researched
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Nothing happens
Worse things happen
Disparities enhanced
Children, families and communities loose faith in
both policy and research
• Careers, jobs and status of adults
• Organizational goals and relative positioning
• Lurch management because of donor fashions
Roles and responsibilities of
governments
• (If they have any role or power at all)
• Build competence in reading and using
research
• Research ethics (NGOs and tsunami/RERP)
• Monitor researcher behaviour – academics
also abuse children
• Apply sanctions
Welsh assembly government
responsibility
• Data collection
• CONCLUDING OBSERVATION para. 19. The Committee recommends that
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the State party:
Establish a nation-wide system such that disaggregated data are collected
on all persons under the age of
18 years for all areas covered by the Convention, including the most
vulnerable groups, that these data are
used to assess progress and design policies to implement the Convention.
The Committee encourages
development of regular reports in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and
Wales and for the whole State
party and the promotion of wide public and parliamentary debate on them
in the United Kingdom and
Scottish Parliaments and Northern Ireland and the Wales Assemblies.
Righting wrongs…
• Key recommendation
• • The Welsh Assembly Government should collate,
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analyse and publish data on the well-being of children
in Wales, monitoring progress across the country in
achieving its 7 core aims for children. It should
report on an annual basis to the National Assembly on
the ‘state of children in Wales’ to enable debate
and reflection. The data collected in Wales should be
capable of measuring progress over time and allow
comparisons with countries within the UK and Europe.
Stop, look, listen
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The Office of National Statistics, the Welsh Assembly Government, the UK Government and
others collect a range of data on children but they do not cover all areas of the Convention.
The data gathered is rarely used to assess progress and shape strategy and there have been no
regular reports on the ‘state of children’ in Wales to promote public debate. Neither the Assembly
Government nor the Children’s Commissioner has fulfilled this function.
The Welsh Assembly Government embarked on a process to determine a national approach to
measuring progress and evaluating outcomes for children and young people with its launch of Rights
to Action30 in 2004. However, progress has been far too slow and three years later a disappointing
framework has just been published which amounts to an ad hoc collection of existing public service
performance indicators. Whilst linked to the UNCRC (as reflected in the Assembly Government’s
seven core aims for children) the suite of indicators cannot be seen as rights-based. There is no
mention of disaggregated data (and no requirement to provide); and few indicators reflect, in
any way, children and young people’s subjective views or experiences. The framework is not
accompanied by any prescription for local partnerships (or indeed national government) to use
the data to assess progress and design policies. Neither is there any reference to the provision of
regular reports on Wales’s children, let alone a description of the arrangements for scrutiny and
debate.
In conclusion, the mechanisms for monitoring outcomes for children in Wales remain woefully
inadequate.31 This makes it very difficult to assess progress towards improving children’s well-being
and therefore to evaluate the impact of policies. In some areas of children’s lives, the lack of data
on children in Wales is particularly acute. For example, there is little Wales-specific data on health
and wellbeing, in particular mental health.
Roles and responsibilities of
researchers and research bodies?
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Expand the discourse outside academic circles – and make it intelligible
Focus on normal as well as pathological aspects of childhood
Learn to use appropriate, rights-based methods
Recognize that children-led/participatory research must have numbers if it is
to be relevant to policies and planning
• Build, maintain and reinforce capacity in both the Global North and South
• Address the mutual misunderstandings at the interface between
policymakers and researchers
• Disseminate publications and reports – including to children
• Be prepared to be whistleblowers – ‘Academic freedom’
• Ongoing monitoring of data quality and research ethics (with sanctions)