Children’s rights in disasters: Concerns for social work – Insights from South Asia and possible lessons for Africa

Abstract

Disasters around the world disrupt the lives of millions of people, especially pushing many children into armed conflict, prostitution, drug trafficking and other dangerous situations, resulting in violation of their rights. Approaches to disaster management continue to be largely technology-centred, top-down and isolated from human development processes in the region. The rescue–relief–rehabilitation (3R) model of interventions largely results in treating children as beneficiaries and not as actors. This article offers possible lessons for Africa, based on the South Asian experience of how children’s rights are (not) practised in the context of disasters.