The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) is applicable to all children and young people under the age of 18. This includes babies and very young children, yet they are a group who are overlooked in the realisation of their rights, and very often not seen as entitled to them in the first place.
The concept of babies as rights-holders was a driver in research I undertook between May and September 2023, for my MSc in Children’s Rights dissertation at Queen’s University Belfast (graduating in December 2023). Having worked in the field of arts and early years in Scotland for over 18 years, I have had a long-standing interest in the policy and practice relating to babies and young children and how this supports their development. The most significant policy development affecting babies, children and young people in Scotland over the last ten years has been the UNCRC being incorporated into domestic law. While the legislation finally came into effect in July this year, the momentum surrounding incorporation has led to an evolving children’s rights discourse that has transcended multiple sectors. Engaging in broader children’s rights discussions and reflecting on where babies and young children were or were not included was a catalyst for developing my understanding of rights through post-graduate study.
Focusing my research on the nascent field of babies’ rights was exciting and challenging. In sharing the work, I hope to foster a discussion about what it means for babies to have rights and how babies’ rights can become tangible for parents, carers and professionals.
HOW TO LOOK AT BABIES’ RIGHTS
My research was developed in response to questions about the position and (in)visibility of babies and young children in society, as well as their ability to enjoy the rights they are entitled to. My questions were centred around:
Do babies have specific rights?
In what ways are babies’ rights acknowledged and presented in UN reporting processes by the Committee, States Parties and Civil Society Organisations?
How do babies access their rights?
What else is needed to realise the rights of babies?
The result was a study using documentary analysis of reporting documents sent to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child from 12 countries and the Concluding Observations that the Committee shared in response. These documents reflect how countries are implementing children’s rights and included reports from civil society organisations as well as from governments. So they are a good place to start to understand how visible babies and young children are within the policy and practice being applied. Through analysis I was able to draw conclusions about how infants are or not included in policy and practice and used this to inform initial thinking on what a framework for babies’ rights might include.
THE LITERATURE
To ground the research, I looked at literature relating to babies and young children to understand how they are perceived within existing sociological and rights discourse.
What became apparent was that there is limited research about babies in society generally. Much of the literature relating to babies comes from medical research, and expanding the search to early years and infants led to early learning and childcare-focused research, most within formal settings and little that focused specifically on babies. Very early in the process it felt that babies were invisible or overlooked.
A key question in the research was to explore whether babies do have rights, and so it was important to look at existing rights theories, and two which view babies and young children as rights holders very differently. The ‘Will Theory’ of rights presents a sceptical stance, suggesting the immaturity and limited capacity of babies means they are not yet conscious of the idea of rights broadly and instead only really entitled to the right to life, to protection, to care and to development. However, that babies and young children are rights-holders is articulated within the UNCRC and the concept of ‘Interest Theory’ reinforces this: that simply being human is the gateway to being entitled to rights and it is the role of others to protect their interests and rights. This view is supported by many who advocate for the rights of infants contributing to the emerging discourse in this field. These researchers view babies and young children as social actors with agency: despite their vulnerability and immaturity, babies are beings who impact and influence the world around them.
THE STUDY
As a Master’s dissertation, there was a limitation to the of scale of the study. It was necessary to identify a cohort of countries, or States Parties, whose documentation would be used in the analysis. To be able to consider cultural similarities, States Parties were chosen from the Western Europe and Other States regional group defined by the UN. States Parties who had received their Concluding Observations from the UN Committee between June 2022 and June 2023 were identified for inclusion. A range of documents were then sourced: States Parties’ reports to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, Alternative Reports produced by civil society organisations and National Human Rights Institutions including Children’s Commissioners, and finally the Concluding Observations that the UN Committee produces in response to the reports that are submitted. Four documents for each country were used apart from the UK, where alternative reports sourced from each UK nation were analysed.
Data was collected through rigorous readings of each document to identify relevant sections and observations regarding babies and young children and a rudimentary word search for key terms such as ‘baby, toddler, infant, childcare, maternity, breastfeeding’, etc. was also completed. The resulting numerical data offered insight into how often these terms arose across the 51 documents used in the study.
The data was initially coded before being grouped under key themes, which were informed by a children’s rights lens, the specific nature of the documentation and the research questions relating to babies and rights.
FINDINGS: HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT
There was a real sense that babies and young children are hidden in plain sight within these documents. To be visible it is necessary to be explicitly referenced, yet the data showed babies and young children are rarely mentioned within policy and practice. The simple term search reflected this: only a handful of alternative reports, those from Ireland, New Zealand, Scotland and Wales, specifically reference babies, few States Parties do, and the UN Committee only refers to them five times, twice in the Dutch and Irish Concluding Observations and once in the German document. While other terms such as ‘infant’ are found in documents, the definition of infant is broad, covering pre-birth to seven or eight years old, meaning that the specific needs of babies and young children are amalgamated with those of older children.
I also noticed there were almost no references to General Comment Number 7 from the UN Committee. The General Comments are produced by the Committee to support implementation of the UNCRC and General Comment 7 is specific to the implementation of rights in early years, for babies and young children from birth to seven years old, yet there were no references to it or the recommendations it makes within the documents.
With babies’ dependency on adults, it was not surprising policy and practice for parental support was very present in the data. Maternal care, parental leave and childcare policies were consistently referenced across the documents. It would be interesting to interrogate these policies further for where the needs and rights of babies are reflected.
Where babies and young children were mentioned, it was primarily in relation to their protection and provision rights, the things they need to survive and thrive: maternal care, breastfeeding and childcare were referenced repeatedly. This is not surprising given how vulnerable babies are and their reliance on adults to meet their needs. It also suggests that, despite the unconditional, indivisible and inalienable nature of all the rights enshrined within the UNCRC, there are rights which are more pertinent to this age group. The focus on care and protection also meant a lack of information about how babies and young children experience their participation rights. While there were some generalised statements about the inclusion of the ‘voice’ of all children and young people supporting the realisation of Article 12 of the UNCRC, how babies and young children enjoy the wider participation rights enshrined within the UNCRC, such as freedom of expression (Article 17) or freedom of association (Article 15), was absent from the data. It was suggested this was due to a lack of understanding of what participation rights look like in practice for this age group.
NEXT STEPS
I hoped to propose a conceptual framework for babies’ rights through this research, but the limitations of a MSc dissertation meant this was not feasible. It was possible to examine what may be useful for further study. If babies are seen as rights-holders, we need to understand more about their experience of rights and how these are realised day-to-day.
When considering what a framework for babies’ rights might include, there are several factors: their particular needs and position in society, their reliance on adults, the balance between dependence and independence are just a few. I hope to investigate this in greater depth through PhD study alongside my work with Starcatchers.
Download the full table of References to Key Terms within Documentation below.
