On Friday, Feb. 23, research partners Annie Watson from Middle Georgia State University and Elizabeth Kaletski from Ithaca College presented their research on how children’s rights are upheld and protected around the world at the University of Connecticut’s Dodd Center for Human Rights.
Susan Randolph, an Emerita professor of economics at UConn, first met Kaletski when she was a doctoral student, was at this event. Kaletski is now an affiliate member of UConn’s Human Rights Institute’s Research Program on Economic and Social Rights. She and Watson work together in the Human Rights Measurement Initiative (HMRI,) which was co-founded by Randolph. These connections brought the pair to UConn to talk to students and other professionals in the human rights field.
Kaletski opened the presentation with statistical examples showing how children’s rights around the world are not being fully respected despite the improvements that have been made to protect them. These examples included that undernutrition contributes to about three million child deaths per year, approximately 5.3 million children die each year from preventable diseases, about 258 million children were not in school before the pandemic, 500 million children had no access to remote learning during the pandemic, and an additional 10 million children are likely never to return to school even after the pandemic.
She said that much country-specific and comparable data is often missing or not reported, making it difficult for researchers to hold governments accountable. The primary goal of these researchers is to fill these gaps in data. Kaletski continued the presentation by giving some background on the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).
The CRC was adopted in 1989 and entered into force in 1990. She described it as very thorough, as there are 41 substantive articles, many of which discuss more than one specific right. For comparative purposes, she and Watson broke the articles down into four categories of rights: personhood, physical integrity, empowerment, and economic and social rights.
Rather than focusing on what has been looked into, the researchers focused on the measurement gaps in the research. The first major gap Kaletski discussed relates to how much coverage the CRC gives certain rights. She said that education and health are “overrepresented” in the research leading, to the exclusion of information on children’s civil and political rights.
Kaletski discussed the secong gap related to a state’s ability to maximize resources. There is a gap of information here because different states operate on different resource constraints, therefore holding different states to different standards. Tied into this gap is the concept of progressive realization. This concept explains how certain governments can go through processes to realize their lack of action to rights obligations rather than being held accountable immediately.
A third gap Kaletski discussed was how child participation in all stages of a research process is ideal but is rarely done.
The final gap Kaletski talked about was methodology. “Existing measures are point estimates. Meaning that they’re single numbers meant to represent how a country performs in a given year, but they tend to not include anything about uncertainty within the measurement,” she said. This skews the perception of the amount and quality of information researchers have available.
The presentation then shifted to Watson, who spoke about how to push forward to fill these gaps. She explained their new approach, which they call Child Rights Scores, which allows them to address some of the gaps in measurements Kaletski mentioned. For example, to address the gap in maximizing resources, the researchers calculated two sets of scores: the enjoyment score and the obligation score. The enjoyment score measures how much the children in a particular country enjoy the rights in the CRC, and the obligation score measures the extent to which governments meet their obligations to children’s rights given the resources they have.
The presentation then shifted to a Q&A in which attendees could ask the speakers questions about their data and career advice and provide advice as to how the researchers could improve their data. Kayleigh Budnick, a second-semester political science major, asked if the researchers could provide examples of how they will include children’s voices more in their studies. “This is probably one of the most difficult parts of this process,” Kaletski said. She said the potential first step to accomplish this would be improving how they communicate their data to people of all ages. If they can understandably present the data, that could create a more inviting environment for children to be involved in. Watson said that another way they could include children is through their contacts at UNICEF and other U.N. bodies that have connections with child groups.
David Richards, an associate professor of political science and human rights at UConn, shared that when he thinks of human rights, he thinks about children’s freedom from corporal punishment and the right to play — two rights not mentioned in the original presentation that he encouraged Kaletski and Watson to look into. This opened the door for others, such as Shareen Hertel, a professor of political science and human rights at UConn, to comment on the importance of this area. She spoke about the limitations on children’s right to play, specifically seen at the U.S. — Mexico border. These limitations include violence, lack of transportation and lack of chaperones. These limitations contribute to declines in children’s health as it has resulted in a spike in Type-II Diabetes.
Kaletski and Watson’s advice to those considering a career path in human rights is to look at local organizations and human rights advocacy groups nearby. These organizations always seek people to get involved in programs and research in local communities.
If you have any questions regarding the presentation or this particular field of research, you can contact either ekaletski@ithaca.edu or annie.watson@mga.edu.