Blog Carnival on the Proposed Child Rights Constitutional Amendment (Expressions of Interest)

On Friday 26 February, Human Rights in Ireland will host a mini Blog Carnival on the draft wording for a constitutional amendment on the child set out in the final report of the Oireachtas Committee on the Constitutional Amendment on Children.

Postings could take a number of different forms, including:

– Analyses of the draft wording in terms of its capacity to address current shortcomings in children’s rights protection under the constitutional framework. Topics of particular interest would include the implications of the draft wording for the realisation of children’s rights in areas such as child protection, adoption/guardianship, child poverty, refugee children, children in care and children in custody.

– Issues surrounding a forthcoming referendum on the draft wording. What forms are the various campaigns around any such referendum likely to take? What obstacles exist with regard to advancing or improving the wording as it stands? What factors will influence the ultimate outcome of such a referendum?

As well as relying on the in-house expertise of Human Rights in Ireland bloggers, those in the human rights, community, voluntary and other related sectors are invited to submit proposals for commentary that they may wish to make on the budget. Blog posts should be between 400-1,000 words (max).

Those interested are asked to contact me at aoife.nolan@qub.ac.uk (before noon 24 February 2010) so that a full Blog Programme can be ready to upload on 26 February.