Canadian Children's Rights Council

Last updated
Canadian Children's Rights Council
Formation1991
Typenon-profit advocacy group
Headquarters Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Official language
English and French
Websitecanadiancrc.com

The Canadian Children's Rights Council Inc. (CCRC); (French : Conseil canadien des droits des enfants inc.) is a non-governmental organization that is based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and was founded in 1991. The CCRC describe themselves as a nonprofit, educational and advocacy organization dedicated to supporting the rights and responsibilities of Canadian children and providing critical analysis of governments' policies at all levels of government in Canada. [1]

Contents

Activities

The organization researches, educates and advocates in the area of the rights and responsibilities of Canadian children. [1] It has testified at Canadian provincial and federal committees and ministerial consultations. [2] [3] [4] Specifically, the CCRC strives to advocate for children's rights by lobbying the government, intergovernmental and non-governmental agencies with research and solutions regarding violations of Canadian children's rights. [5]

With 50 million website visits since launching in 2003, the organization states that its website is the most visited website in Canada on the issues of children's rights and responsibilities. [1]

The CCRC offers a virtual library of books, position statements, research articles, and historical and other documents on children's issues such as bullying in Canadian schools; child abuse; universal education and health care for children; parental alienation; equal shared parenting; the Youth Criminal Justice Act ; adoption and birth parent identity; paternity fraud; corporal punishment; infanticide; and child abandonment laws. [5]

Positions

The organization supports the existence of a national and provincial commissioners on the implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. [6] The group opposes corporal punishment including spanking, and promotes the idea of parent training in alternatives. [1]

In reference to a Halifax newborn who was abandoned in a remote field, and six other Ontario babies that were simply thrown in the garbage, [7] the group's president, Grant Wilson, has stated that women who abandon and leave their babies without the necessities of life should be charged with attempted murder..."; [8] and that Canada's infanticide law should be repealed, as it devalues the lives of children, violates their rights, and is "a license for women to kill babies." [9] In both cases he argues that a defense of diminished capacity could be still used in cases involving post partum depression. [8] [9] Wilson's rationale for this is the reality that Canadian child abandonment cases rarely result in criminal charges being laid. [9]

Wilson has stated that women frequently make false allegations of abuse during divorce to secure custody; and that men are just as likely to be the victim of domestic violence because of such violence being underreported. [3] He has also called for tougher penalties, including jail time, for mothers who consistently deprive their children of visitation rights with their fathers. [10] [11] In response to an Ontario court decision which ordered a man continue paying child-support for children he discovered were not biologically his, the organization advocated for mandatory paternity testing of all children at birth in order to prevent paternal discrepancy issues. The grounds on this position is that such a mandatory process would uphold a child's right to have contact with their biological fathers. [12]

While the organization is a children's rights group, one scholar and a few media outlooks view the organization and its president as men's [4] [10] [3] and fathers' rights advocates. [13] [14] Psychologist and academic Erica Burman comments that the group "has appropriated a discourse of children's rights as an anti-feminist strategy" and has adopted the acronym of the Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children. [14]

Related Research Articles

Infanticide is the intentional killing of infants or offspring. Infanticide was a widespread practice throughout human history that was mainly used to dispose of unwanted children, its main purpose being the prevention of resources being spent on weak or disabled offspring. Unwanted infants were usually abandoned to die of exposure, but in some societies they were deliberately killed. Infanticide is generally illegal, but in some places the practice is tolerated, or the prohibition is not strictly enforced.

Child support is an ongoing, periodic payment made by a parent for the financial benefit of a child following the end of a marriage or other similar relationship. Child maintenance is paid directly or indirectly by an obligor to an obligee for the care and support of children of a relationship that has been terminated, or in some cases never existed. Often the obligor is a non-custodial parent. The obligee is typically a custodial parent, a caregiver, or a guardian.

The men's rights movement (MRM) is a branch of the men's movement. The MRM in particular consists of a variety of groups and individuals who focus on general social issues and specific government services which adversely impact, or in some cases, structurally discriminate against, men and boys. Common topics discussed within the men's rights movement include family law, reproduction, suicides, domestic violence against men, false accusations of rape, circumcision, education, conscription, social safety nets, and health policies. The men's rights movement branched off from the men's liberation movement in the early 1970s, with both groups comprising a part of the larger men's movement.

The fathers' rights movement is a social movement whose members are primarily interested in issues related to family law, including child custody and child support, that affect fathers and their children. Many of its members are fathers who desire to share the parenting of their children equally with their children's mothers—either after divorce or marital separation. The movement includes men as well as women, often the second wives of divorced fathers or other family members of men who have had some engagement with family law. Most Fathers' rights advocates argue for formal gender equality.

REAL Women of Canada is a socially conservative advocacy group in Canada. The organization was founded in 1983.

Children's rights or the rights of children are a subset of human rights with particular attention to the rights of special protection and care afforded to minors. The 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) defines a child as "any human being below the age of eighteen years, unless under the law applicable to the child, majority is attained earlier." Children's rights includes their right to association with both parents, human identity as well as the basic needs for physical protection, food, universal state-paid education, health care, and criminal laws appropriate for the age and development of the child, equal protection of the child's civil rights, and freedom from discrimination on the basis of the child's race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, religion, disability, color, ethnicity, or other characteristics.

Anne Clare Cools is a Canadian retired senator and the longest serving member of the Senate of Canada. As a social worker, Cools was a pioneer in the protection of women from domestic violence, running one of the first domestic violence shelters in Canada.

Child protection is the safeguarding of children from violence, exploitation, abuse, and neglect. It involves identifying signs of potential harm. This includes responding to allegations or suspicions of abuse, providing support and services to protect children, and holding those who have harmed them accountable.

The fathers' rights movement in the United States is a group that provides fathers with education, support and advocacy on family law issues of child custody, access, child support, domestic violence and child abuse. Members protest what they see as evidence of gender bias against fathers in the branches and departments of various governments, including the family courts.

The fathers' rights movement has simultaneously evolved in many countries, advocating for shared parenting after divorce or separation, and the right of children and fathers to have close and meaningful relationships. This article provides details about the fathers' rights movement in specific countries.

The history of feminism in Canada has been a gradual struggle aimed at establishing equal rights. The history of Canadian feminism, like modern Western feminism in other countries, has been divided by scholars into four "waves", each describing a period of intense activism and social change. The use of "waves" has been critiqued for its failure to include feminist activism of Aboriginal and Québécois women who organized for changes in their own communities as well as for larger social change.

Articles related to children's rights include:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Corporal punishment in the home</span> Form of punishment used by parents to inflict physical pain or discomfort

Physical or corporal punishment by a parent or other legal guardian is any act causing deliberate physical pain or discomfort to a minor child in response to some undesired behavior. It typically takes the form of spanking or slapping the child with an open hand or striking with an implement such as a belt, slipper, cane, hairbrush, paddle, whip, or hanger. On a looser definition, it can also include shaking, pinching, forced ingestion of substances, or forcing children to stay in uncomfortable positions.

Sikhism was founded in Punjab in 1469 by Guru Nanak on the foundations that everyone is equal, regardless of caste, age, or gender. Both men and women are supposed to follow the Five Ks: Kesh, Kangha (comb), Kara, Kachera and Kirpan, and there was never a distinction between what a woman should be allowed to do versus a man at theological level. Men and women are treated equally in the temple (gurdwara), and everyone eats and prays side-by-side. Both men and women are meant to carry the Kirpan with them as they are responsible for their own physical protection, and should not depend on others. Sikhs are strictly against the caste system and many chose to use Kaur or Singh as a last name to push against the problematic caste system in India. There is only one god (Waheguru) in Sikhism and they are without form or gender, and everyone is equal in the eyes of God. Many Sikh women believe that this absence of assignment of code of conduct for a woman versus a man proves that their religion is historically committed to gender equality. Presently, the culture does not always follow these traditions and equality is often more true in ideals rather than daily practice. According to Kiman Kaur: "It is essential to take into account the diverse Kaur narratives in order to critically understand the violence Sikh women experience due to religious, ethnic, and gender minoritization through enabling more intersectional conversations."

Marilou McPhedran is a Canadian lawyer, human rights advocate and politician. Since October 2016, McPhedran is a member of the Senate of Canada.

The Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children (CCRC) is one of Canada's foremost national children's rights advocacy groups, dating back to 1989. The coalition consists of more than fifty non-governmental organizations.

An anonymous birth is a birth where the mother gives birth to a child without disclosing her identity, or where her identity remains unregistered. In many countries, anonymous births have been legalized for centuries in order to prevent formerly frequent killings of newborn children, particularly outside of marriage.

Paper abortion, also known as a financial abortion, male abortion or a statutory abortion, is the proposed ability of the biological father, before the birth of the child, to opt out of any rights, privileges, and responsibilities toward the child, including financial support. By this means, before a child is born, a man would be able to absolve himself of both the privileges and demands of fatherhood.

The Indigenous Famous Six was created by The Feminist Alliance for International Action for the purpose of advocating for Indigenous women's rights. This collective action by six Indigenous women is similar to the collective effort taken by the "Famous Five" that gained Canadian women the right to vote. Collectively the Indigenous Famous Six were active in challenging the sex discrimination in the Indian Act in Canada during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

A honey badger, or less often FeMRA, is a nickname for a woman who publicly advocates for men’s rights, particularly one who also criticizes feminism. They are said to be among the most prominent men's rights activists and to provide breadth and legitimacy to the movement, as men may be more easily criticized as advocating only for their own interests.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Spanking Alternatives". Toronto Star . Apr 30, 2008. Retrieved 2009-05-22.
  2. ↑ "Canadian Children's Rights Council". Children's Rights Information Network. Retrieved 2009-05-22.
  3. 1 2 3 Mann, Ruth M. (2008). "Men's Rights and Feminist Advocacy in Canadian Domestic Violence Policy Arenas". Feminist Criminology. 3: 44–75. CiteSeerX   10.1.1.413.6328 . doi:10.1177/1557085107311067.
  4. 1 2 Girard, April L. (2009). "Backlash or Equality? The Influence of Men's and Women's Rights Discourses on Domestic Violence Legislation in Ontario". Violence Against Women. 15 (1): 5–23. doi:10.1177/1077801208328344. PMID   19015392.
  5. 1 2 Canada, Senate of (2016-04-21). "Senate of Canada - Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade". Senate of Canada. Retrieved 2021-02-12.
  6. ↑ "Canada not meeting obligations to children: UNICEF". CTV News. 2007-11-20. Archived from the original on 2012-07-28. Retrieved 2009-05-22.
  7. ↑ "Should parents who abandon their babies be spared prosecution? | CBC News". CBC. Retrieved 2021-02-12.
  8. 1 2 The Current; CBC: Feb 8, 2007. Retrieved 4/2/08
  9. 1 2 3 Kleiss, Karen (June 24, 2009). "Baby killer conviction provokes controversy". Edmonton Journal. Archived from the original on June 27, 2009. Retrieved 2009-07-18.
  10. 1 2 McIlroy, Anne (December 5, 1998). "Child Custody: The great divide". The Globe and Mail . Archived from the original on April 19, 2003. Retrieved 2009-05-27.
  11. ↑ Lee-Shanok, Philip (March 31, 1998). "Custody Penalties Ripped". Toronto Sun.
  12. ↑ "The Meaning of Fatherhood". CBC News: Sunday. January 11, 2009. Archived from the original on March 31, 2009. Retrieved 2009-07-18.
  13. ↑ Bala, Nicholas (1999). "A report from Canada's "gender war zone": Reforming the child-related provisions of the Divorce Act" (PDF). Canadian Journal of Family Law. 16 (2): 163–227.[ dead link ]
  14. 1 2 Burman, Erica (2008). Deconstructing developmental psychology. New York: Routledge. p. 170. ISBN   978-0-415-39561-8.
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