This article appears in the following Refugee Survey Quarterly issue: CHILDREN AT RISK [View the issue table of contents]
The Advent of Child Rights on the International Scene and the Role of the Save the Children International Union 1920–45
*Lara Bolzman is an assistant at the Department of Health Studies, University of Applied Sciences of Western Switzerland. The author is a Bachelor and Master of Advanced Studies in History. This article is an extract of a larger research study entitled "Genève au secours de l’enfance en danger. L’oeuvre de l‘Union Internationale de Secours aux Enfants, 1920–1945", presented in October 2007 at the University of Geneva to obtain a Masters of Advanced Studies in History. The law is current as of 16 May 2008.
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Abstract |
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The Save the Children International Union (SCIU) was founded in 1920 in Geneva by the Save the Children Fund of London in cooperation with the Comité International de Secours aux Enfants of Bern. This philanthropic organization was created in the interwar context. The Declaration of Children's Rights, written in 1923 by the Union, is certainly the most important work of the SCIU. Adopted in 1924 by the General Assembly of the League of Nations, this statement marks the entry of the child into international relations. Moreover, the Declaration reveals the evolving legal status of the child. At times an innocent victim, at other times perceived as an "abnormality", the notion of childhood is in constant evolution. What this stage of life really represents depends on the way it is viewed by society, by politics, by institutions and organizations, etc.