Näkyville piilotetut: Lapset ja lapsen oikeudet aseellisissa konflikteissa suomalaisten rauhanturvaajien haastatteluissa

The research examines how children's rights are defined and implemented in the practices of military crisis management. At the same time, the research also explores the conceptions of childhood and the actors’ self-understanding regarding their roles, on which children's rights and their implementation are based. The data for the study consist of qualitative interviews (21 in total) conducted between 2020 and 2022 with Finnish individuals who have participated in military crisis management operations.

Changes in the societal and legal status of children mean that an increasing number of actors—also those for whom children are not an institutional main task—must consider children and their rights in their work. Children and armed conflicts have been on the agenda of the UN Security Council since the 1990s, and international discussions about recognizing children as part of civilian protection and peacekeeping have intensified. This development is linked to changes in peacekeeping itself. The operating environment of these operations has become more complex and closer to civilian populations, including children and their typical everyday environments. This means that peacekeepers are increasingly likely to encounter children and questions related to their rights in their work.

The research is presented as a monograph. The empirical section of the study is framed with theoretical chapters that provide context and highlight dimensions related to the research questions. The first theoretical chapter examines childhood, children's rights, and children's rights in armed conflicts. The second theoretical chapter explores the changes in warfare, peacekeeping, and the status of children in armed conflicts. The status of children in armed conflicts is analyzed through frame-works identified in research literature, such as protection and participation. The effects of armed conflicts on children are also reviewed from the perspectives of different groups of children.

The research approach to the study's ontological and epistemological foundations is influenced by critical realism. Social reality is examined as both material and social. Encounters with children and interpretations made about them carry different layers. The chosen research method is thematic analysis. The empirical results, based on the interview data from peacekeepers, are presented in two main chapters. The first main chapter discusses how peacekeepers define themselves in relation to children, the children their work affects, and their accounts of working with children. The second empirical chapter addresses how children's rights are discussed in the data. It examines both explicitly stated rights and the more implicit ways in which children's rights are discussed.

In the study, children's rights in armed conflicts were examined as practices realized in everyday life. This means that children's rights take on their content and meaning in the contexts in which they are implemented. The ways children and their rights were defined and considered were shaped by institutional context and its constraints, the positions adults adopted in relation to children, and different conceptions of childhood. Children were addressed, for example, through various guidelines on bodily interaction. At the same time, various contradictory elements were associated with both children and their rights. For instance, while concrete work was perceived as being directed elsewhere, children were encountered and were reported as constantly present. One of the key findings was that both children and their rights in military crisis management were issues that were, in various ways, hidden in plain sight. Children's rights were often observed in situations involving serious violations of those rights or linked to groups of children whose rights, such as the right to education, were not realized. The connection between routine tasks, such as reporting or mine awareness campaigns, and children's rights was less apparent.

One distinctive feature of discussions about children's rights is how new groups of children and issues come to light. Children affected by armed conflicts represent one such group. Addressing children's rights requires increasingly tailored approaches, the consideration of diverse factors, and specialized expertise. This presents challenges for approaches based on children's rights. Actors need a wide range of knowledge and skills to ensure that the rights of children affected by armed conflicts are realized in the practices and situations where decisions affecting children are made. Supporting this effort requires understanding what addressing the rights of children affected by armed conflicts entails in different contexts and institutional practices where children's rights are implemented. Insight is also needed on which conceptions of childhood and understandings on the situations of children affected by armed conflicts the interpretations of children's rights are based.