Child-Right-ing: Going Beyond Innocence to Realize the Rights of Undocumented Migrant Children through Struggles for the Rights of All Children

Abstract

Children’s rights are a blessing and a curse for undocumented migrant children. They are one of few available resources in migrant struggles, but at the same time they are also extensively mobilized to govern children’s mobility. In this article, I first analyze the limitations of children’s rights as rooted in understandings of children as ‘innocent’ human ‘becomings’ and the colonial legacy and paradoxical character of rights. I then connect this discussion to a postcolonial analysis of who counts as ‘human’ enough for human rights. Building on these reflections, I construct a framework for how these limitations can be approached and utilized through perpetual and antagonistic struggles to give children’s rights renewed political meaning, always focusing on the rights of all children—an approach I call ‘child-right-ing’. I apply this concept to concrete examples from Sweden and the USA to identify strategies and tactics that have been utilized to both limit and extend the rights of undocumented migrant children. Through these discussions, I aim to contribute with a deepened understanding of the ambivalent role of children’s rights. I sketch an outline for a framework that can ensure that children’s rights are effectively utilized in contemporary struggles by and for undocumented migrant children—and potentially marginalized groups of children overall.

Keywords

• undocumented migrant children
• children’s rights
• child-right-ing
• migrant struggles
• paradoxes