Child Rights and Realities

This paper explores how children’s rights are operationalised in practice, specifically by Canadian child and youth advocate offices (all 12 offices across Canada), international children’s commissioners’ offices (in Northern Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Belgium, Norway and Denmark), and their institutional structures. A total of 24 participants took part in the study, including 12 current child and youth advocates from the Canadian Council of Child and Youth Advocates (cccya), two former advocates from the cccya, three additional staff members of the cccya (collectively, representing all 12 jurisdictions across Canada), one children’s commissioner and six designates on behalf of various international children’s commissioners. This paper shifts the research focus of children’s rights and childhood studies from the narrow confines of the individual child to a focus on the broader relational and interdependent aspects inherent within institutions that protect and promote children’s rights.