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61. Manufacturing Moral Panic: Weaponizing Children to Undermine Gender Justice and Human Rights

Author:
Juliana Martínez, Ángela Duarte, and María Juliana Rojas
Publication Date:
03-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Elevate Children Funders Group
Abstract:
This research explores how gender-restrictive groups are using child protection rhetoric to manufacture moral panic and mobilize against human rights, and how this strengthens the illiberal politics currently undermining democracies. The report’s comparative analysis of three country case studies (Bulgaria, Ghana, and Perú) underscores recurring strategies, narratives, and actors and gives insight into how gender-restrictive groups collaborate and engage in coalitional work across the globe. This significant new research includes important findings and recommendations for funders.
Topic:
Human Rights, Children, LGBT+, Gender Minorities, and Gender
Political Geography:
Bulgaria, Peru, and Ghana

62. Case Study 1. Peru: How Gender-Restrictive Groups May Lose the Legal Battle, but Win the Communications and Cultural War

Author:
Juliana Martínez, Ángela Duarte, and María Juliana Rojas
Publication Date:
03-2021
Content Type:
Case Study
Institution:
Elevate Children Funders Group
Abstract:
Peru is the birthplace of one of Latin America’s strongest transnational gender-restrictive movements. Understanding its sociocultural and political context sheds light on the operation of gender-restrictive groups and the rise of neoconservative politics in the region. Lima is geopolitically and strategically important because it hosts the headquarters for various gender-restrictive organizations in the region, including Ceprofarena, the Office for Latin America of the Population Research Institute, Latin American Alliance for the Family, Opus Dei, and Sodalicio de la Vida Cristiana (interview with George Hale, 2020). Therefore, many strategies that instrumentalize children32 to manufacture moral panic and oppose “gender ideology” in countries such as Colombia, Argentina, Mexico, and Chile are oftentimes planned or tested in Peru, or implemented in the country after their success elsewhere. Concretely, the Don’t Mess With My Kids (DMWMK) movement33 in Peru is representative of how genderrestrictive groups instrumentalize children to threaten children’s rights, along with gender-justice, in a country with disturbing evidence of gender-based violence and intense sexism. The Peruvian case also illuminates the ways in which gender-restrictive groups identify key battlefields related to women’s and children’s issues—such as Comprehensive Sexuality Education—that they use as a toehold to advance gender-restrictive initiatives in many policy areas and at several political levels.
Topic:
Human Rights, Children, LGBT+, Gender Minorities, and Gender
Political Geography:
South America and Peru

63. Case Study 2. Bulgaria: "How Children's, Women's, and LGBT Rights Got Lost in Translation; The Development of the Most Effective Gender-Restrictive Movement in Eastern Europe

Author:
Juliana Martínez, Ángela Duarte, and María Juliana Rojas
Publication Date:
03-2021
Content Type:
Case Study
Institution:
Elevate Children Funders Group
Abstract:
The Istanbul Convention (IC) was the first European treaty to provide a comprehensive framework to address all forms of violence against women and girls. With wide support from across the political spectrum, the EU presented it to member states for ratification in 2011. Despite the endorsement of 18 European countries, Bulgaria became the first country to decide against ratifying it in 2018. Furthermore, the Bulgarian Constitutional Court declared the treaty unconstitutional. Though this decision took many by surprise, it was the culmination of years of work by gender-restrictive groups in the country. As a member of the European Union since 2007, Bulgaria is a signatory of multiple international declarations that protect LGBT,60 women’s, children’s, and human rights. However, over the last decade—and particularly since 2018—the country has also seen the rise of well-organized gender-restrictive groups that have successfully worked to curtail the advancement of human rights and gender justice.61 Bulgaria’s rejection of the IC was the first of a series of events that jeopardized human rights by directly undermining LGBT, women’s, and children’s rights.
Topic:
Human Rights, Children, Women, LGBT+, and Gender
Political Geography:
Europe, Eastern Europe, and Bulgaria

64. Shifting the Field: Philanthropy’s role in strengthening child- and youth-led community rooted groups

Author:
Marcela Rueda Gomez
Publication Date:
04-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Elevate Children Funders Group
Abstract:
The objective of this study was to map current practices in philanthropic support for child and youth led work at the community level and provide strategic advice to donors on how to strengthen their funding modalities through participatory approaches. The recommendations from this process will pave the road for members to challenge their own practices; build on momentum to shift money down to the grassroots level; explore ways to influence the broader sector; and influence and shift the wider donor community thinking and approaches.
Topic:
Children, Youth, Philanthropy, Funding, and Grassroots Organizing
Political Geography:
Global Focus

65. The United Nations Children and Armed Conflict Agenda: Integrating Child Protection Issues and Children’s Voices in Peace Processes

Author:
Asha Asokan
Publication Date:
05-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Public and International Affairs (JPIA)
Institution:
School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA), Princeton University
Abstract:
One in five children lives in a country affected by conflict (Save the Children 2019). Despite concerted international and national efforts to protect children, these 415 million children face grave human rights violations that continue to rise. More political will and resources are needed from governments and parties to the conflict to prevent such violence against children and protect children in armed conflict. However, research confirms that out of 431 ceasefire and peace agreements, less than 18 percent of peace agreements included child protection provisions (Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict). Often, peace-related documents that mention child protection issues do not mention integrating children's participation into peace processes, which is essential to understanding and addressing children's needs during and after the conflict. To end the cycle of violence against children, a paradigm shift must be made in the way peace agreements address children’s issues and rights. Guided by the “Global Policy Paper on Youth Participation in the Peace Process,” commissioned by the United Nations Envoy on Youth, this paper recommends that mediators and child protection actors employ three integrated but non-hierarchical layers for including child protection issues and children’s participation in the peace process: “in the room,” “around the room,” and “outside the room” of formal peace negotiations. This multi-layered, inclusive approach may help achieve the desired results: preventing violence against children and reaching a sustainable peace.
Topic:
International Relations, United Nations, Children, Peace, and Armed Conflict
Political Geography:
Africa, Middle East, and Asia-Pacific

66. The role of childcare challenges in the US jobs market recovery during the COVID-19 pandemic

Author:
Jason Furman, Melissa Kearney, and Wilson Powell III
Publication Date:
06-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE)
Abstract:
This working paper examines how much of the overall decline in employment between the beginning of 2020 and 2021 can be explained by excess job loss among parents of young children, and mothers specifically. Using data from the Current Population Survey (CPS), the authors confirm that, in general, mothers with young children have experienced a larger decline in employment, as compared (unconditionally) with other adults, including fathers. This excess job loss is driven by mothers without a four-year college degree. The main point of the paper is to build off this observation and examine how much of the aggregate employment deficit in early 2021 can be explained by parent-specific issues, such as childcare struggles. To examine this question, the authors construct counterfactual employment rates and labor force participation rates that assign to mothers of young children the percent change in employment and labor force participation rates experienced by comparable women without young children. The paper considers multiple definition, sample, and counterfactual specification alternatives. The analysis yields robust evidence that differential job loss among mothers of young children accounts for a negligible share of the ongoing aggregate employment deficit. The result is even stronger (and flips signs) if all parents are considered, since fathers with young children experienced less job loss than other men. The practical implication of these findings is that nearly all of the aggregate ongoing employment deficit is explained by factors that affect workers more broadly, as opposed to challenges specific to working parents.
Topic:
Labor Issues, Children, Pandemic, COVID-19, and Childcare
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

67. Birth Order, Sibling Sex Composition, and Quantity–Quality Trade-offs – Evidence from India

Author:
Ilke Onur and Malathi Velamuri
Publication Date:
02-2021
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
Abstract:
We use two waves of data from the India Human Development Survey to investigate the effect of family size on (i) parental expenditures on children’s education; and (ii) test scores of proficiency in reading, writing, and maths for 8–11-year-old children. We investigate whether these effects vary by gender, birth order of children, and sibling sex composition. We address the endogeneity of family size, using an instrumental variable approach. Our ordinary least squares estimates provide evidence of quantity–quality trade-offs in children’s educational expenditures, the existence of birth-order effects, and a sizeable pro-son bias. For test scores as well, ordinary least squares estimates indicate negative spillovers from additional children. The instrumental variable estimates, in contrast, find no evidence of quantity–quality trade-offs, birth order, or sibling sex composition effects in either expenditures or test scores. However, instrumental variable estimates of the male premium are bigger than ordinary least squares estimates. They also suggest that children enrolled in private schools do no better than those in government schools. Moreover, the advantage that boys appear to have over girls in maths is largely reversed in private schools.
Topic:
Education, Gender Issues, Children, and Family
Political Geography:
India and Asia

68. Education for All? Assessing the Impact of Socio-economic Disparity on Learning Engagement During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Indonesia

Author:
Samuel Nursamsu, Winsu Harto Adiwijoyo, and Anissa Rahmawati
Publication Date:
10-2021
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
Abstract:
This paper attempts to shed light on the impact of socio-economic disparity on learning engagement during the COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia. Utilising search intensity data from Google Trends, school data from Dapodik (Education Core Database), and socio-economic data from the National Socioeconomic Survey, we conduct descriptive analysis, an event study, and difference-in-difference estimations. First, school quality differs in terms of the regions’ development level, especially between western and eastern Indonesia. However, densely populated and well-developed areas generally have lower offline classroom availability. In addition, the quality of public schools is generally lower than private schools. Second, our estimation results show that only online-classroom related search intensity that increased significantly after school closures on 16 March 2020, not in self-learning related search intensity. Further the analysis shows that socio-economic disparity within provinces widens the gap in online learning engagement, albeit with weak evidence from per capita expenditure. Interestingly, provinces with a higher inequality and rural population tend to have higher self-learning related search intensity due to students’ necessity to compensate for low learning quality from schools. In addition, technology adoption does not seem to give much of an increase to online-classroom related search intensity but contributes to lower self-learning related search intensity due to increased academic distraction. Our study provides evidence for the Indonesian government to make more precise policy in improving learning quality during the pandemic.
Topic:
Education, Children, Inequality, Pandemic, COVID-19, Socioeconomics, and Public Schools
Political Geography:
Indonesia and Asia

69. Social Policy Programme “The Family 500+” – Assumptions, Results, and Costs of Functioning: Is It Worth?

Author:
Anna Owczarcyk
Publication Date:
01-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Polish Political Science Yearbook
Institution:
Polish Political Science Association (PPSA)
Abstract:
The unfavorable demographic situation and the falling number of births resulted in an increased interest among Polish politicians in introducing tools to social policy that would reverse this negative trend. Implemented to social policy by Prawo i Sprawiedliwość Party in 2016, the “Family 500+” benefit has become such a tool. According to the government’s intention, this financial aid for families with children aims to reverse the decline in the number of births observed for many years and reduce the scale of poverty among families with the most complex financial situation. After several years of the “Family 500+” Program in force, it is difficult to clearly define whether the goals were achieved and whether the expenses for financing the program were adequate to the results. The aim of the article is an attempt at the assessment of the functioning of the Family 500+ Programme. Both the statutory assumptions of the programme, the costs of its functioning, and its results so far were analyzed. The central part of the analysis covered the period 2016–2019.
Topic:
Poverty, Children, Social Policy, and Welfare
Political Geography:
Europe and Poland

70. Access to Data on Children in Turkey: An Evaluation Based on the Urban95 Project Experience

Author:
Bürge Elvan Erginli and Gizem Fidan
Publication Date:
03-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV)
Abstract:
Nowadays, the need for the use of data in developing an accurate, effective and measurable urban policy is being voiced by many local administrations and civil society organizations, and as a matter of fact, some local administrations have already increased their efforts for data production and use. However, organizations face with certain problems in regard to accessing, obtaining and generating systematic data. The purpose of this report is to put forward these problems along with their reasons and to offer solutions by focusing specifically on data regarding early childhood period.
Topic:
Civil Society, Governance, Children, Urban, and Data
Political Geography:
Turkey, Middle East, and Mediterranean