Children's human rights especially in Family Law and Child protection systems

“Varones Violentos/Estado Negligente”, es un trabajo colectivo realizado por las investigadoras de EQUIFEM, Claudia Hasanbegovic, Rocío Belén Oliva y Carolina Cymerman, publicado en ”Mujeres de Latinoamérica. El presente en Veintidós Letras” (editado por María Estela Lanari y Claudia Hasanbegovic).
“Varones Violentos/Estado Negligente” nos introduce al análisis del reclamo judicial de la cuota alimentaria por parte de madres que quedan a cargo de sus hijos e hijas menores luego de una separación con el padre de las/os mismos.
La investigación toma como punto de partida que el No Pago de Alimentos constituye violencia de género económico-patrimonial que afecta a mujeres y a niños/as por igual.
La investigación también parte de comprender que el patrón de fracaso del Estado en hacer cumplir las Cuotas Alimentarias, ya sea por falencias en la legislación o por ineficacia de los mecanismos judiciales, es una violación a los derechos humanos de mujeres y niñas y niños.
“Varones Violentos/Estado Negligente” presenta los hallazgos de una investigación empírica desarrollada en la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires y que combinó técnicas cuantitativas con entrevistas en profundidad, notas etnográficas e historias de vida con 90 mujeres de sectores socio-económicos medios-bajos y en situación de calle. Estas mujeres, además de tener en común el género, el ser jefas de hogares ´monomarentales’ con hijos/as pequeños/as compartieron la experiencia de la violencia de género económico-patrimonial por parte de los padres de sus hijos/as, y de haber contactado al Estado (Poder Judicial y Poder Ejecutivo) en búsqueda de su intervención para frenar la violencia, con resultado muy diverso y heterogéneo.
Este ensayo presenta un análisis feminista e interdisciplinario del material recogido, que entrecruza las teorías de género, la antropología, el trabajo social, el derecho de familia y el derecho penal, teniendo como marco general las Convenciones de los Derechos de la Niñez, la CEDAW y Belém do Pará que permiten comprender la violación a los derechos humanos que la ineficacia en asegurar los Alimentos a niñas y niños implican.

Immediately after the enactment by the Philippine legislature of The Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act of 2012, fourteen public interest lawsuits challenged the constitutionality of the new law, raising issues of transcendental importance to human life and the family. In a landmark 2014 Decision, the Philippine Supreme Court accorded ample protection to early human life from the moment of conception—not after, not at implantation, not after birth—because " a human being begins immediately at fertilization. " The Court added that " any philosophical, legal, or political conclusion cannot escape this objective scientific fact. " This finding of the High Court upholds the fundamental right to life, a right it said was grounded on natural law and transcends any authority or the laws of men. In its aftermath, the Judgment effectively forecloses all inroads to the legalization of abortion in the only Christian country in Asia, amidst a global conspiracy for abortion rights.

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to consider possible implications of recent policy initiatives in schools and local government for child safeguarding practice in education settings in the state sector in England.
Design/methodology/approach – Recent policy changes to promote devolution of decision-making to school and local government level are analysed in the light of the literature on multi-agency working for the protection of children.
Findings – The paper highlights the complexity of the current context in which local arrangements
for the safeguarding of children are operating. This includes efforts at integration of funding and
structures, coupled with rapid changes in policy in both education and children’s social care and
greater decision-making powers at local level. Together this makes it difficult to evaluate the
current strengths of safeguarding arrangements between schools and other local agencies to help ensure that arrangements for the safeguarding of children in “independent” state schools are
robust and effective.
Research limitations/implications – Researchers and policy-makers need to consider the efficacy
of safeguarding arrangements under new local government and integrated structures in England.
Practical implications – There is relatively little research addressing inter-organisational
information exchange in relation to education professionals involved in safeguarding. This paper sets out some directions for inquiry, including specific priorities that may be useful to the research and practice communities in the context of integration.
Originality/value – The paper provides a summary of key policies and strategies that inform child
protection in state school settings in England.
Keywords Child protection, Decentralization, Education, Schools, Child safeguarding,
Mulitagency working
Paper type Viewpoint

This is the introductory chapter to Elizabeth Brake and Lucinda Ferguson (eds), Philosophical Foundations of Children's and Family Law (OUP 2018).

What defines family law?  Is it an area of law with clean boundaries and unified distinguishing characteristics, or an untidy grouping of disparate rules and doctrines?  What values or principles should guide it – and how could it be improved?  Indeed, even the scope of family law is contested.  Whilst some law schools and textbooks separate family law from children’s law, this is invariably effected without asking what might be gained or lost from treating them together or separately.  Should family law and children’s law be distinguished or treated together? 

One would expect disagreement on these questions in any context.  In bringing together theorists from multiple jurisdictions and at least two primary disciplines, we should not be surprised to find deep differences in approach reflecting different methodologies and foundational questions.  The tension between them, we hope, can illuminate and enrich discussion on all sides.  Further, through combining insights from law and philosophy, we also intend to add another layer to the current trend to focus on the empirical in family law research, and highlight how critical debates in children’s and family law are at once theoretical and empirical in nature.  Understanding the nature and content of a child’s “best interests” as contained in multiple jurisdictions’ legal frameworks regulating private and/or public law concerning children, for example, requires us to approach the matter both conceptually – in order to adjudicate between frameworks – and in terms of fit with evidence from research.  This immediately makes any satisfactory resolution more uncertain, contested, and subject to criticism.  It is in this context that we hope that the conversations between law and philosophy, their points of agreement and divergence, can advance stalled debates. 

International differences correspond, of course, to differences in law, policy, and procedure.  Contrast, for example, England and Wales’ ‘single pot’ approach to the distribution of property and maintenance upon marriage breakdown  to the more common, “pillarised”  treatment of matrimonial property, pensions, and maintenance.  The difference in system design necessarily affects the available potential justifications.  As a more nuanced aspect of the impact of system design, one might consider the normative difficulties created by the variation in default regimes adopted in relation to matrimonial (or marital) property between US states.  Facing jurisdictional differences – like considering historical changes within one’s own jurisdiction – can yield an awareness of the context-specificity of one’s own starting points.  And awareness of how things are done differently can lead us to call into question our own ways of doing things.  Such awareness might alert us to unintended consequences of legislation or to innovative solutions.  And, more fundamentally, it might cause us to interrogate what we take as the core, the normal, or even the natural.  This is where philosophical investigation becomes indispensable.

In Section II, we outline a number of respects in which the approaches taken by (academic) lawyers and philosophers writing in this field tend to differ, as well as how the structure of this collection seeks to cut across and highlight both these divergences and shared accounts.  In Section III, we introduce the key themes that underpin the collection, which demonstrate the potential for cross-fertilisation between legal contexts as well as between legal and philosophical perspectives.  When we refer to ‘lawyers’ and ‘philosophers’, we have in mind those working in family law and children’s law in particular.

Penubuhan Mahkamah bagi kanak-kanak (MBKK) dalam sistem keadilan
jenayah kanak-kanak adalah bertujuan untuk memberikan perlindungan
undang-undang terhadap kanak-kanak. Mahkamah ini dianggotai oleh seorang Majistret dan dibantu oleh dua orang penasihat yang salah seorang daripada  mereka adalah seorang wanita seperti yang diperuntukkan di dalam seksyen 11(2) Akta kanak-kanak 2001 (AKK 2001). Penasihat MBKK adalah  berperanan untuk menasihati Majistret dalam memberikan perintah kepada  kanak-kanak yang berkonflik dengan undang-undang dan jika perlu menasihati  ibu bapa atau penjaga kanak-kanak tersebut. Namun Sekyen 11 AKK 2001 ini  merupakan peruntukan tunggal berkaitan penasihat MBKK di Malaysia. Selain
peruntukan undang-undang yang terlalu umum, tidak ada garis panduan atau  peraturan-peraturan yang menjelaskan mekanisme pelaksanaan tugas,  pelantikan, kriteria lantikan dan keperluan latihan penasihat MBKK. Sehubungan itu, kajian ini bertujuan untuk mengenal pasti isu dan cabaran  yang berkaitan dengan kedudukan dan peranan penasihat MBKK. Analisis  dibuat terhadap dokumen perundangan dan jurnal akademik. Temubual separa  struktur turut dijalankan dengan Jabatan Kebajikan Masyarakat (JKM),  Kementerian Pembangunan Wanita Keluarga dan Masyarakat (KPWKM), Bahagian Hal Ehwal Undang-undang (BHEUU), Jabatan Perdana Menteri  (JPM) dan lima orang penasihat MBKK (mewakili kawasan bandar dan luar  bandar) bagi mengenalpasti isu dan cabaran yang dihadapi penasihat MBKK.
Kajian mendapati kedudukan dan peranan penasihat MBKK adalah diiktiraf  dan ia telah wujud sejak 1947 di dalam Akta Mahkamah Juvana 1947.  Beberapa isu dan cabaran telah dikenalpasti antaranya berkaitan bidang kuasa,  struktur governan, mekanisme pelaksanaan tugas, kriteria lantikan,pelantikan PMBKK, modul serta latihan bagi penasihat MBKK. Ketiadaan garis panduan,  peraturan-peraturan khusus atau manual berkaitan mekanisme pelaksanaan  tugas telah membataskan fungsi dan peranan PMBKK di dalam prosiding  MBKK. Kajian ini adalah signifikan dalam mencadangkan kerangka  penambahbaikan penasihat MBKK sekaligus menambah wibawa serta  meningkatkan professionalism mereka selain dapat berperanan secara efektif
di dalam sistem keadilan jenayah kanak-kanak di Malaysia.

This presentation was done at the Legal Representation for Children and Youth Conference in Calgary May 7, 2015. The paper argues that there needs to be a standard of determining when a parent involved with child protection should be able to care for their children. It suggests a framework for assessors to work with.