Do EU Regulations Provide Sufficient Protection From Child Essay

Do EU Regulations Provide Sufficient Protection From Child Exploitation Within Member States - Essay Example (Beckett, 2007) The European Convention on Human Rights 1950 was a more general attempt to define the rights of humans and it was not a child centric legislation. However, it sets the overall tone of the regulation and suggests that the rights of children have also been considered. This is also significant in the wake of the fact that EU Court on Human Rights has developed significant level of jurisprudence to cover extensively human rights issues pertaining to children. (Bueren, 2007) Local and national governments in EU are considered to be closer to their communities and are considered in a better position to safeguard the interests of the children under the UN Human Rights Charter and Child Rights. It is critical to note however, that children did not featured as a voice in the overall policy making and legislative process in EU till late 1990s. At the time of formation of treaty, though there was an emphasis on bringing in equality between men and women however, children hardly featured into the overall policy making and legislative process in the region. (Renucci, 2005) The Amsterdam Treaty for the first time however, realized this anomaly and clarified new changes though which discrimination based upon age was discouraged. Amsterdam Treaty was enacted in 1997 and supplemented the European Union Treaty. The Article 13 of the treaty clarified that Children should be included in the treaty and discrimination against them should be treated equally along with adults. (Cockburn, 2010) The overall child protection can also be viewed from the perspective of social protection. Expenditure on social protection is considered as one of the indicators of how the 27 member States actually contribute and intervene into reducing predefined risks to... Most of the existing studies on the topic are the reviews of the legislations made over the period of time. This research study will focus upon exploring as to whether these regulations have been effective in achieving their objectives. This research study will therefore provide an insight into how future legislations need to be done in order to make them more applicable and result oriented. Ethics are normally concerned with right, wrong, good and bad and outlines as to how issues of moral concerns can be explored. Since exploring the issue of child protection involves understanding the ethical point of view also, it is therefore critical that ethical inquiry should be blended with the qualitative research design to explore underlying research issues.More appropriately, the existing regulations from EU with respect to child protection will be explored from the perspective of Utilitarianism. Utilitarianism outlines the greater good for the greater number of people and as such existing regulations pertaining to child protection may be viewed from utilitarian perspective. Quantitative research methods will also be employed to explore and understand the impact of the legislations on the reduction of child exploitation. For the purpose of this research, a sample set of 10 member countries will be chosen. This sample will be randomly picked countries officially admitted to the membership of EU since last 10 years.