The Historical Development of the Child Welfare System in Latin America

Abstract

Using the Convention on the Rights of the Child as a powerful advocacy tool, the children's rights movement in Latin America has accomplished significant advances in the promotion of children's entitlements and welfare over the last decade. Specifically, there has been a measure of success in advancing legal reforms aimed at adjusting domestic laws to the standards set forth in the Convention. However, the recognition of formal entitlements in the new legislations has not been accompanied by a comparable improvement in service provision to the children of the poorer sectors of society, which constitute the vast majority of youngsters in this region. To a great extent, this lag can be explained by the structural constraints that limit the pace of reforms within the welfare state apparatus in developing economies, the legacies of past institutional arrangements and the contradictory ideological undercurrents present in the social construction of childhood in societies characterized by profound class cleavages. From this perspective, this article attempts to provide historical clues for the understanding of some of the challenges faced by most present-day child welfare systems in Latin America.