Transcendental Wild Oats

Punishing Childhoods: Contradictions in Children's Rights and Global Governance

“…However, global advocates, predominantly urban and middle class, are less alarmed about the hazards of rural life than urban life, haunted by the romantic child of nature intertwined with older puritan moral anxieties. As Alcott wryly observed over a century ago, idealists may happily lecture on the joys of simple living comfortably insulated from its insecurities and hardships (Alcott, 1975). Sustainable development"s tacit perpetuation of child labour needs more study, although insightful analysis exists on the global political economy"s impact on children and global advocacy"s ambivalence for children (Boyden, 1994;Lewis, 1998;Hart, 2005;King, 1996;Niewenhuys, 2000Niewenhuys, , 2001Watson, 2006).…”