The ‘Best Interest of the Child’: Exploring the International Human Rights Norm as an Applied Standard in Residential Care Centers in New Delhi, India

Proeschold-Bell, Rae Jean

Plunkett, James

2020-02-10T17:24:24Z

2022-01-10T09:17:18Z

2019

Global Health

Background: Although used previously as a function of the judiciary primarily in custody battles, the best interest of the child because an international human rights standard with the 1989 adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) by the UN General Assembly. The ‘best interest’ standard has consequently been adopted and used in many State-level child protection polices, particularly in reference to orphans and separated children (OSC), in low and middle-income countries (LMICs), including India. However, little attention has been paid to how State-level actors, including both policy stakeholders as well as direct carers of OSC, interpret and implement this standard in their local contexts.

Objective: This study’s objective was to explore how the best interest of the child as a norm of international human rights is interpreted and applied to the care and protection of OSC in residential care policy in India.

Methods: Using a qualitative, experimental, design we conducted semi-structured in-depth interviews and focused group discussions with two distinct groups: 1) Child Protection Policy Stakeholders and 2) Direct caregivers of OSC in a residential care center (RCC). Policy group participants completed in-depth interviews about current child protection policies in India and their interpretation of the best interest of the child. Direct caregivers of OSC completed in-depth interviews and, for certain caregiver sub-categories, focused-group discussions on their daily lived experience working with and, sometimes, living with OSC in residential care settings.

Results: Thirty-eight direct caregivers of OSC from one particular residential care center in New Delhi took part in the study. Eighteen policy stakeholders, including government bureaucrats, policy researchers, child rights advocates, and directors of RCCs also took part. Interview results were grouped into ‘key area domains’, with five domains emerging per participant group. Ultimately three domains were overlapping between the groups: Resources, Accountability, and Approaches to Care while two domains were distinct for each group: Policy Frameworks and Reforms (Policy Stakeholders) and Institutional Processes and Perceptions of the Experience of the Child (Direct caregiver group). Distinct differences and similarities were noted amongst all of the domains between the two participant groups. All domains were somehow related to the attempt to construct the best interest of the child in RCCs in India.

Conclusion: Although a de jure standard, both internationally and nationally, the best interest of the child seems to be a de facto reality in India, especially as defined by direct caregivers of OSC. In this setting, the best interest emerged not as a standard that individuals and organizations held themselves to, but as a construct that was created and re-created based on , in particular, availability of resources, accountability mechanisms, and the way in which individuals approached caring for children.

https://hdl.handle.net/10161/20072

Public policy

best interest of the child

Human rights

India

Institutions

Vulnerable children

The ‘Best Interest of the Child’: Exploring the International Human Rights Norm as an Applied Standard in Residential Care Centers in New Delhi, India

Master's thesis

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