ABSTRACT
Children’s rights are considered an important framework for eradicating the social exclusion of children (see Cemlyn & Briskman, 2003; Davis, 2007; Tisdall, Davis, Hill & Prout, 2006). The main objective originating from the children’s rights agenda is to include children as co-citizens in society. From the 1960s and 1970s on, the children’s rights movement, a social movement in defence of the interests of children, challenged societal structures, policies, and practices that excluded children from society. Verhellen (1998, p. 486) made this clear with his statement to ‘bring children back into society’. The critique of the children’s rights movement was directed at the discourse of child protection that made its appearance at the end of the nineteenth century in industrialised societies (Archard, 2004; Verhellen, 2000). Typical for the protection discourse was the exclusion of children from society, based on the childhood image of the ‘incompetent child’ (Reynaert, Bouverne-De Bie & Vandevelde, 2009). The purpose of child protection was to initiate children into adulthood. Childhood was directed at instructing children to become competent. ‘Integration by means of separation’ as Honig (2008, p. 201) explained, or inclusion by exclusion. The children’s rights movement expressed a rather radical critique to this con - ceptualisation of children and childhood. They argued for the recognition of the agency of children and therefore, for the recognition of children as fellow citizens in society (Archard, 2004; Verhellen, 2000). Children should not be included in society, the children’s rights movement stated, as they are part of it already. Children should be acknowledged in their competency as autonomous human beings, eliminating the argument of incompetency as ground for the social exclusion of children (Reynaert et al., 2009). In recent years, social exclusion and children’s rights have become more associated with particular problems such as poverty or discrimination, preventing children from participating in society. Participation became a central notion in the discussion on social exclusion (Davis, 2007; Roche, 1999; Tisdall et al., 2006). Giving children the opportunity to participate in society should contribute to be included in this society. Accordingly, children’s rights and social exclusion are strongly intertwined, with the former being considered as an important instrument to combat the latter.
