ECA has always been an advocate for children’s rights, underpinning our vision that every child is thriving and learning. This includes some of the world’s most vulnerable children, who by no choice of their own, find themselves to be refugees fleeing their home and seeking asylum on safer shores. It is therefore concerning to hear […]
My eight-year-old daughter recently complained to me about a boy in her grade. “Dad, he keeps on trying to kiss me. Today at recess he kissed me twice on the face. I keep telling him to ‘Stop!’ and he doesn’t.” In the past this incident may have been called cute. Parents or staff members may […]
The Australian Government’s Child Care Package has raised old tensions between the twin objectives of early childhood education and care – parent’s workforce participation and child development. For the first time, children may not be able to access child care subsidies if one of their parents is not undertaking work or another eligible activity. Modelling by the […]
You’ve heard it a million times before. “Children are like sponges. They just soak up every drop of information.” And to personify this sponge simile there’s even a popular Nickelodeon character called Sponge Bob Square Pants; a vapid sea sponge that spouts inane jabberwocky. Recent social research shows that the sponge or ‘fill it up’ theory […]
We have just celebrated National Children’s Week, a yearly acknowledgement of the importance of child rights in Australia. 2015 was a particularly auspicious year, as it marked 25 years since the creation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). The theme was “Children’s Rights are Human Rights”. This critical document […]
La Trobe University The recent publication of The Forgotten Children report of the Australian Human Rights Commission included 13 drawings by detained asylum seekers aged between four and 17. The drawings have been widely reproduced in recent media coverage of the report, as well as on social media campaigns. Other visual components of the report, […]
