ABSTRACT
This chapter motivates the importance of studying human rights violations of children through the additional layer of childism when problematizing discrimination and prejudice against children as a heterogeneous group. Prejudice against children creates explanation-models that give legitimacy to different forms of violence in the exercise of power by adults. As racism serves to uphold white supremacy and sexism serves patriarchal structures of discrimination, childism serves adultist forms of oppression. Childist beliefs function as explanation-schemes in rationalizing violence against children, turning a scale of neglect into socially acceptable practices. Without critical theory and methodology to study instances of discrimination against children, important terrains of human rights studies risk being overlooked and unexplored.
