Children's Rights and the Need for Protection

The abuse and neglect system is premised on the child's need for protection. The language of the system itself seems to suggest that the child's need for protection is a right?a right, for example, to be cared for and nurtured or to be placed in a permanent and safe loving home. Thinking about rights in this way, as needs the child may have that warrant protection, is entirely consistent with an interest theory of rights.1 Under this account, certain individual interests generate rights although the theory itself leaves open the question of which specific interests actually give rise to rights. Thus rights are those interests deemed worthy of protection; to that extent, any duties which arise are the result of saying that a particular interest is worthy of protection. Those who claim that children do have rights under an interest theory invariably identify as rights those interests which strongly correlate to the child's need for protection.2 For example, the child's interest in being cared for, nurtured, and loved is worthy of protection as a right. The child's basic interests, like the need for food, shelter, and love,