Children, Law and Justice: A South Asian Perspective

The importance of child welfare cannot be over-emphasised since the growth and development of any society is heavily dependent on the health and well-being of its children. This awareness on an international scale led to the emergence of the concept of children’s rights which culminated in the adoption in 1989, of the UN convention on the rights of the child. Even though all South Asian countries ratified this convention immediately, there is as yet little awareness in the region of the importance of this convention at various levels-including policy planning, activism and legal reform-in the on-going effort to achieve children’s rights. It is against this background that Children, Law and Justice provides a detailed examination of the 1989 UN convention. The primary objective is to outline the options available for using the convention to create a legal environment favourable to the realisation of the rights of the child in South Asia. To this end Savitri Goonesekere comprehensively discusses the concept of child rights as expressed in the convention, and the problems and prospects of realising these radical international standards in the context of the current realities in the region.