From the Bookshelves: Child Migration and Human Rights in a Global Age by Jacqueline Bhabha
Child Migration and Human Rights in a Global Age by Jacqueline Bhabha (Princeton University Press, 2014)
Why, despite massive public concern, is child trafficking on the rise? Why are unaccompanied migrant children living on the streets and routinely threatened with deportation to their countries of origin? Why do so many young refugees of war-ravaged and failed states end up warehoused in camps, victimized by the sex trade, or enlisted as child soldiers? This book provides the first comprehensive account of the widespread but neglected global phenomenon of child migration, exploring the complex challenges facing children and adolescents who move to join their families, those who are moved to be exploited, and those who move simply to survive.
Spanning several continents and drawing on the actual stories of young migrants, the book shows how difficult it is for children to reunite with parents who left them behind to seek work abroad. It looks at the often-insurmountable obstacles we place in the paths of adolescents fleeing war, exploitation, or destitution; the contradictory elements in our approach to international adoption; and the limited support we give to young people brutalized as child soldiers.
Part history, part in-depth legal and political analysis, this powerful book challenges the prevailing wisdom that widespread protection failures are caused by our lack of awareness of the problems these children face, arguing instead that our societies have a deep-seated ambivalence to migrant children–one we need to address head-on.
Child Migration and Human Rights in a Global Age offers a road map for doing just that, and makes a compelling and courageous case for an international ethics of children’s human rights.
Jacqueline Bhabha is professor of the practice of health and human rights at the Harvard School of Public Health, director of research at Harvard’s François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights, and the Jeremiah Smith, Jr. Lecturer at Harvard Law School. Her books include Children without a State: A Global Human Rights Challenge.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
PART I
The Right to Respect for Family Life? Moving Children for Family
Chapter 1 Looking for Home: The Elusive Right to Family Life
Chapter 2 Staying Home: The Elusive Benefits of Child Citizenship
Chapter3 Family Ambivalence: The Contested Terrain of Intercountry Adoption
PART II Youthful Commodities: Moving Children for Exploitation
Chapter 4 Targeting the Right Issue: Trafficked Children and the Human Rights Imperative
Chapter 5 Under the Gun: Moving Children for War
PART III Demanding a Future: Child Migration for Survival
Chapter 6 David and Goliath: Children’s Unequal Battle for Refugee Protection
Chapter 7 Demanding Rights and a Future: Adolescents on the Move for a Better Life
Notes
Index
KJ