Canada signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child over a decade ago, yet there is still a lack of awareness about and provision for children’s rights.
What are Canada’s obligations to children? How has Canada fallen short? Why is it so important to the future of Canadian society that children’s rights be met?
Prompted by the gap between the promise of children’s rights and the reality of their continuing denial, Katherine Covell and R. Brian Howe call for changes to existing laws, policies and practices. Using the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child as their framework, the authors examine the continuing problems of child poverty, child care, child protection, youth justice and the suppression of children’s voices. They challenge us to move from seeing children as parental property to seeing children as independent bearers of rights.
In The Challenge of Children’s Rights for Canada, Canada’s obligations and the rights of children are examined from the perspectives of research and development in the fields of developmental psychology, developmental neuroscience, law and family policy.
This timely and accessible book will be of interest to academics, policy-makers and anyone who cares about children and about taking children’s rights seriously.

Katherine Covell holds a PhD in Psychology from the University of Toronto. She is a professor emerita and former executive director of the Children’s Rights Centre at Cape Breton University. She has acted as a national and international advocate for children, and has published widely on children’s rights and child development, including the UN report Violence against Children in North America (2005).

Katherine Covell's profile page

R. Brian Howe is a professor of political science and Katherine Covell is a professor of psychology at Cape Breton University. They are co-directors of the university’s Children’s Rights Centre and the authors of numerous articles on children’s rights and human rights in Canada. Their books include The Challenge of Children’s Rights for Canada (WLUP, 2001) and Empowering Children: Children’s Rights Education as a Pathway to Citizenship (2005). Katherine Covell is the author of the UN report Violence against Children in North America (2005).

R. Brian Howe's profile page

• Short-listed, Donald Smiley Prize, Canadian Political Science Association
• Short-listed, Canadian Policy Research Outstanding Research Contribution Award

In The Challenges of Children's Rights for Canada, Katherine Covell and R. Brian Howe provide a moving and well-reasoned argument for the basic human rights of children. They offer compelling reasons for social reform with a view toward advancing and protecting the rights of children globally, and specifically in Canada.

Joan Whitman Hoff, Lock Haven University of PA, American Review of Canadian Studies, Spring 2008, 2008 June

Covell and Howe present a comprehensive, well-researched critique of Canada's implementation of the UN Convention. They highlight the consequences of not recognizing, and making allowances for children's rights. They use statistical and anecdotal evidence to directly link many prevalent social problems to the current state of children's rights....This illumination of the problems, accompanied by a strategy for change, makes this book both timely and necessary.

Dan Kolenick, <i>Saskatchewan Law Review</i>

...the authors provide us with a great deal of important information about the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and about the various initiatives undertaken by Canada since ratification of the Convention in 1991....The Challenge of Children's Rights for Canada is a very useful resource.

Margaret Hall, <i>Canadian Journal of Law and Society</i>