This book will challenge the orthodox view that children cannot have the same rights as adults because they are particularly vulnerable. It will argue that we should treat adults and children in the same way as the child liberationists claim. However, the basis of that claim is not that children are more competent than we traditionally given them credit for, but rather that adults are far less competent than we give them credit for. It is commonly assumed that children are more vulnerable. That is why we need to have a special legal regime for children. Children cannot have all the same rights as adults and need especial protect from harms. While in the 1970s “child liberationists” mounted a sustained challenge to this image, arguing that childhood was a form of slavery and that the assumption that children lacked capacity was unsustainable. This movement has significantly fallen out of favour, particularly given increasing awareness of child abuse and the multiple ways that children can be harmed at the hands of adults. This book will explore the concept of vulnerability, the way it used to undermine the interests of children and our assumptions that adults are not vulnerable in the same way that children are. It will argue that a law based around mutual vulnerability can provide an approach which avoids the need to distinguish adults and children.

This book is inspired by a statement released by the World Health Organization directed at preventing and eliminating disrespectful and abusive treatment during facility-based childbirth. Exploring the nature of vulnerability during childbirth, and the factors which make childbirth a site for violence and control, the book looks at the role of law in the regulation of professional intervention in childbirth. The WHO statement and other published work on ‘mistreatment’, ‘obstetric violence’, ‘birth trauma’, ‘birth rape’, and ‘dehumanised care’ all point to the presence of vulnerability, violence, and control in childbirth. This collected edition explores these issues in the experience of those giving birth, and for those providing obstetric services. It further offers insights regarding legal avenues of redress in the context of this emerging area of concern. Using violence, vulnerability, and control as a lens through which to consider multiple facets of the law, the book brings together innovative research from an interdisciplinary selection of authors. The book will appeal to scholars of law and legal academics, specifically in relation to tort, criminal law, medical law, and human rights. It will also be of interest to postgraduate scholars of medical ethics and those concerned with gender studies more broadly.

This book takes an international perspective on child welfare, examining how frameworks can be adapted to address the rights and best interests of children. Synthesising the latest research, experts redefine the concept of a 'child in need' in a world where global movement is common and children are frequently involved in the law.

While in the past family life was characterised as a "haven from the harsh realities of life", it is now recognised as a site of vulnerabilities and a place where care work can go unacknowledged and be a source of social and economic hardship. This book addresses the strong relationships that exist between vulnerability and care and dependency in particular contexts, where family law and social policy have a contribution to make. A fundamental premise of this collection is that vulnerability needs to be analysed in a way that gets at the heart of the differential power relationships that exist in society, particularly in respect of access to family justice, including effective social policy and law targeted at the specific needs of families in mutually dependent caring relationships. It is therefore crucial to critically examine the various approaches taken by policy makers and law reformers in order to understand the range of ways that some families, and some family members, may be rendered more vulnerable than others. The first book of its kind to provide an intersectional approach to this subject, Vulnerabilities, Care and Family Law will be of interest to students and practitioners of social policy and family law.

Global support for improving child welfare and upholding the rights of children is strong, but in practice often fails to recognise the emerging gap between traditional child welfare practices and the evolving nature of child vulnerability. This book takes an international perspective on child welfare, examining how global and national frameworks can be adapted to address the rights and best interests of children. Synthesising the latest international research, experts redefine the concept of a 'child in need' in a world where global movement is common and children are frequently involved in the law. The book considers children as citizens, as refugees, victims of trafficking, soldiers, or members of indigenous groups and identifies the political and cultural changes that need to take place in order to deliver rights for these children. Focusing in particular on child protection systems across nations, it identifies areas of child welfare and family law which systematically fail to look after the best interests of children, often through prejudice, outdated practice, or even the failure of agencies to work together. Exploring the nexus between children's rights and the law across the globe, this book makes essential reading for policymakers, social workers, lawyers, researchers and professionals involved in protecting vulnerable children.

This book brings together legal scholars engaging with vulnerability theory to explore the implications and challenges for law of understanding vulnerability as generative and a source of connection and development. The book is structured into five sections that cover fields of law where there is already significant recourse to the concept of vulnerability. These sections include a main chapter by a legal theorist who has previously examined the creative potential of vulnerability and responses from scholars working in the same field. This is designed to draw out some of the central debates concerning how vulnerability is conceptualised in law. Several contributors highlight the need to re-focus on some of these more positive aspects of vulnerability to counter the way law is being used enable persons to escape the stigma associated with vulnerability by concealing that condition. They seek to explore how law might embrace vulnerability, rather than conceal it. The book also includes contributions that seek to bring vulnerability into a non-binary relationship with other core legal concepts, such as autonomy and dignity. Rather than discarding these legal concepts in favour of vulnerability, these contributions highlight how vulnerability can be entwined with relational autonomy and embodied dignity. This book is essential reading for both students studying legal theory and practitioners interested in vulnerability.

Policies to assist or protect vulnerable youth play a crucial role in welfare and criminal justice processes, but what role does the discourse surrounding these policies play in how they are put into action? Bringing together real-life examples with academic and practical applications, this book explores the implications of a "vulnerability zeitgeist" in policy and practice. It draws on in-depth research with marginalized young people and the professionals who support them to question whether the rise of the concept of vulnerability serves the interests of those who are most disadvantaged. Vulnerability and Young People will be important reading for scholars, students, and policy makers interested in the care and protection of young people.