Prologue

Prologue

Víctor Giorgi Director-General of IIN-OAS

The Inter-American Children’s Institute is pleased to present this eleventh issue of the IIN-fancia Newsletter, following up on an editorial project begun six years ago. This publication takes place on a date steeped in history for our institution. It was on 9 June 1927 that ten countries signed the founding charter of the American Institute for the Protection of Children. In turn, in 2017, the OAS, in commemoration of the 90th anniversary of that foundational act, designated 9 June as Americas Children and Youth Day. One date, two celebrations with a great deal of meaning, which account for 94 years of history with continued commitments to the well-being of children and the Americanist conception; and with rifts, transformations in the incorporation of new perspectives and new paradigms providing a focal point from which to work for and – more recently – with children and adolescents, recognized as a collective subject.

As in any commemoration, these dates encourage us to have a look at the path of history travelled, but also to think about the meanings that that history and its legacies acquire at every moment and historical circumstance. Today, the region and the world are experiencing an unprecedented crisis. The pandemic, beyond its medical and health-related implications, comprehensively affects the lives of us all, including children and adolescents. Acting as a kind of highlighter, it has shed light on certain aspects that had always been present in our societies, but that we were not able, did not want or could not bring ourselves to see: inequities, violence, exclusion, objectification of childhood, the weakness of protection systems. The societies of the Americas, even the most highly developed, were not able to keep their populations safe; that is, to ensure access to the minimum necessary for a decent life in any critical situation. This is very far from being the reality of the region and our daily work with children gives evidence of it. In this publication, readers will find a diversity of contributions. Some of them are related to issues that have been on the agenda of rights for some time, but that today are revealed much more dramatically. Others are not explicitly related to the effects of the pandemic, but touch on issues related to the realization of rights that are not foreign to this context. On this occasion we have included a paper that provides a historical look at the emergence and evolution of ways of thinking about child protection, not as an invitation to contemplate the past, but as a contribution that enhances our understanding of the debates and positions that cut across the field of childhood today. The new and harsh reality that the region is undergoing does not displace from the agenda the great issues that were being addressed before. It underscores them, sharpens them, infuses them with new elements, but we must resist the temptation

to take the pandemic and its effects as a “smokescreen” that conceals the structural aspects of the most unequal and violent region of the planet. Poverty, violence and exclusion are not the result of the virus, but of our social, economic and political dynamics. At the IIN, the conviction that current urgencies could not divert us from the direction determined by our Action Plan (20192023) led us to strive to include the emerging demands of the crisis within the broad courses of action we had anticipated. As we have often said, our Action Plan is our “navigation chart”, and as such it should be flexible, so that we can face the unforeseen without veering away from our course. This “listening to reality” led us to prioritize new work areas. An example of this is the key importance that digital environments have assumed as venues for the promotion and protection of rights; or the place of education, not as a curricular process but as a social area for cross-generational encounters and a privileged area for the presence of the State in the territories and in the daily life of children, adolescents and families. These new areas of work on old topics are referred to in various contributions included in this newsletter. The history of the region shows us that children’s and adolescents’ access to their rights has always been more a result of economic cycles than of legal or regulatory progress. The future is uncertain, but even the most optimistic forecasts agree that the region faces difficult years ahead, during which the promotion of child rights will require technical rigour, ethical commitment and the ability to coordinate efforts with different organizations and stakeholders. The history of the Americas and their children abounds in crises, insecurities and suffering; but also in creativity, resilience and the ability to overcome adversity. In this regard, we reaffirm the historic commitment of the IIN to continue

working for and with children and adolescents to make their rights a daily reality. Finally, we cannot fail to thank all of those who, despite these difficult times, have accepted our invitation and have made efforts to share their reflections and experiences in this space. It is a heterogeneous group of people in terms of nationality, training, institutional affiliations and theoretical reference frameworks, but, as on other occasions, they have converged in an editorial space whose main focal point is the promotion and protection of the rights of children and adolescents. We hope that this publication will provide a modest contribution to reflection, analysis and much-needed thinking at these critical times when reality challenges us to the extreme and demands from all of us commitment and clarity to move towards a horizon of equity and social integration in which the dignity of children and adolescents is fully respected.

Montevideo, June 2021