Abstract
Historically, children have suffered because they have no social movement to advance their cause. Unlike other groups claiming their legitimate rights, such as seniors, labour, women, and ethnic minorities, children are political orphans. Consider the following examples: Austria, 1940s, doctors kill children with disabilities to examine their brains (Silvers & Hagler, 1997); Brazil, 1980s, off-duty police execute street children because they are considered a public nuisance (Scheper-Hughes & Hoffman, 1997); United States, 1990, the U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect declares society’s lack of response to the crisis of child abuse a national moral disaster (Melton & Barry, 1994a); Canada, 1989,