Child Rights: The Movement, International Law, and Opposition

10 “The Right Child”: Challenges and Opportunities of Child Rights Legislation in Theory and Practice

201 D d Ten “The Right Child”: Challenges and Opportunities of Child Rights Legislation in Theory and Practice Krisjon Olson The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) has been used by international aid agencies and the Guatemalan government to bolster community reconstruction following the armed conflict (1960-1996). Child rights discourse, with its particular logic of protection, is in tension with a postwar context where children are both the survivors and perpetrators of violence. An anthropological study, based on a decade of ethnographic fieldwork, demonstrates that, as young people have become a focal point for reconciliation and social reintegration, conflicting ideas of the “right child” emerge in contemporary Guatemala. Introduction The view that human beings have rights, simply because they are human, is one of the most common moral ideals in the world today. The idea of human rights creates an intricate web of people and places that seems to characterize late capitalism.1 By closely examining the implementation of children’s rights norms by humanitarian organizations and the embodiment of those ideals in a Guatemalan youth movement for peace I consider several questions.2 What are rights, and on what basis do people claim or argue for them? What reasons 202 krisjon olson have been offered for doubting or rejecting these claims? How are humanitarian interventions and human rights activism changing ideas about young people? These are questions I have asked ordinary people, children, donors, and activists in Guatemala.3 The armed conflict in Guatemala (1960-1996) is familiar to outside observers as a site of multiple conflicts. It is sometimes known as a conflagration of Cold War politics, a dirty war against a rebellious populous.4 The violence has also been variously categorized as “ethnic warfare” with shifting claims on Mayanist liberation.5 What most scholars agree upon is that the course of the war inflicted massive violence upon the Guatemalan people, with as many as a quarter of the nation’s population displaced and hundreds of thousands killed.6 In a conflict that spanned thirty-six years, war enveloped the lives of nearly all those who remained. Following the signing of the Peace Accords in 1996, the vulnerability of life itself came to the forefront of this protracted conflict as local people failed to reap the benefits of social reform. Citizens, young people, and activists raised questions about how to end enduring violence, transform a buckling social and economic infrastructure, and rein in political corruption. Today, according to the most recent United Nations report, Guatemala has one of the highest infant mortality rates and the lowest life expectancies at birth of any country of the Americas. In spite of its being the largest economy in Central America, deep inequality and social stratification are often singled out as most significant to understanding Guatemala’s ongoing poverty and entrenched racism. At the same time there is continuing impunity for those who engaged in genocide, torture, forced disappearances, and extrajudicial executions during the war. It is the issue of ongoing violence that saturates everyday conversations. Local newspapers chronicle the bodies that have piled up on the streets and crime that touches every corner of the country as the homicide rate has doubled since the signing of the Peace Accords in 1996. Most observers agree that such violence is not attributable to any single factor.7 But many peace workers argue that a lack of educational and professional opportunities make young people prone to violence and children have become a focal point of local, national, and international humanitarian interventions. Since the decades of war in Guatemala have officially come to a close, a proliferation of international and local nongovernmental organizations has engaged in humanitarian work to secure children’s rights and create a movement for social reform for and by young people. Reconstruction and reintegration take place through an intricate network of education, medical care, and community participation. The involvement of young people, who were both innocent and under fire during the conflict, is seen as key to securing human rights and post- 203 “the right child” war reconciliation. While the armed conflict has formally ceased, the fear of war is a way of life in Guatemala.8 I shall describe how the CRC is employed by international aid agencies andtheGuatemalangovernmenttoreconstructcommunitiesincrisis.Theyouth movement carries a range of political and material meanings that continually alter the Guatemalan landscape. International child rights instruments recast power and everyday...