Being a Child in a Global World

Globalisation, which is founded on an axis of dissemination and change, has economic, social, cultural and political dimensions. Since the rise of capitalism in the 1800s, the concept of childhood has evolved along with the shifting conception of man in globalisation. This shift can be investigated by looking at three pillars: (1) shifting play patterns, (2) child Labour and (3) violence towards children are all issues that need to be addressed. Play has been one of the most important phenomena that people have created for themselves throughout history. Toys that have grown more common and standardised as a result of globalisation are now available to children from various cultures all over the world and are designed to meet specific criteria. It is common knowledge that children have worked to aid their families' economies since they were young, and that child Labour is crucial for the family, village and clan. However, as a result of the commodification of Labour during the industrialisation process and major monopolies' quest for cheap Labour during the globalisation process, children were forced to work in exceedingly terrible conditions for extremely low wages. In the globalisation process, child pornography, the employment of girls and boys as sex workers and child abuse have become more frequent. Aside from child sexual assault, the rise in child murders, the fact that children are the most susceptible and easy targets for organised crime and the growing number of wars around the world illustrate the growing violence that children are exposed to as a result of globalisation. Computer games, which are often centred on war and involve heavy themes of violence, normalise and internalise violence in youngsters.

In this chapter, we will look at the worldwide issues that children face and the recommendations made by international organisations (UNICEF, WHO, OECD) to help them salvage their future. Moreover, we attempt to identify and comprehend the elements that contribute to Norway's position as a top-performing country on worldwide children's indices. Norway outperformed nearly 200 other countries and was ranked first in the world. In 2017, it ranked first in the Child Development Index and the Kids Rights Index. ‘The greatest country in the world to be a child is Norway’ (De Neve & Krekel, 2020).

Our perception and analysis gradually grow and mature from subjectivity to objectivity as we investigate different periods of society and widen the temporal and spatial framework. The egocentric viewpoint is responsible for some of humanity's greatest mistakes and social crises throughout history. Without perceiving the ‘other’ and considering individuals who are different from them, societies will not be able to create permanent solutions. Although the answers offered are appropriate for one's own civilisation, when looking at the problem from a global perspective, it is extremely likely that there will be a significant incompatibility with other nations and societies. In this context, while our study advises a method of approaching social arrangements regardless of location, particularly time period, it also provides analysis. So much so that today's analysis differs from yesterday's, and tomorrow's will differ even more from today's. Today, more than 80% of the population lives in cities, and this trend is expected to continue. We find that the perceptions of the demands of generations x, y, z and alpha, living today in the same time period, for public goods and/or services, and the value they place on them, are considerably different in the demographic segment, which continues to develop and grow.

Our study intends to explain, on a worldwide scale, how the value ascribed to events, objects and phenomena differentiate these perceptions through social observations and bilateral interviews with these people living simultaneously in an urban environment. Despite the fact that our research will define a geographical area as an urban area in terms of scope, it will also present examples of these urban areas from other countries throughout the world, putting the problem in a global context. Our sample comprises the major cities of the countries with the most people on each continent, whereas our study universe spans the entire globe. It is about observing the values given to these generations' perceptions of urban services in these capitals, ensuring that generations better understand each other based on these findings and reforming the production and presentation of urban goods and/or services based on these findings. Developed and emerging countries are the focus of our judgements and observations.

The child is humanity's future; childhood experiences shape future social life and culture. Happier children, and thus happier societies, are the result of a proper definition and comprehension of the child and his/her childhood period and the elimination of harmful behaviours and attitudes towards children during their formative years. Childhood is a distinct period in various communities and historical periods.

When dealing with childhood and the history of childhood around the world, all types of information, documents and items that are assumed to be directly or indirectly related to the child will contribute to understanding the place of childhood in the historical process. The importance of the child's role in history was recognised, and childhood was encouraged in historical research. Understanding the historical changes in the concept of childhood will influence children's positive development and perceptions of childhood. As a result, we wanted to examine childhood through the lens of history.

In the early period of human history, when neither classical slavery nor wage slavery existed, all individuals forming a community, nuclear or extended family, contributed according to their abilities and powers to the satisfaction of the vital needs of the group. The male workers are the first group of people who work for wages, the second are the female workers who are employed less than the male workers and the third is the group of child workers who are the cheapest of all. Child labour in the street economy is the smallest unit of society which has been used for centuries to meet the vital needs of the family. This use of child labour takes the form of unpaid domestic labour in micro-enterprises such as agriculture, business administration and handicrafts, which can be seen as an example of a closed economy. The work of a girl helping her mother with the housework, the work of a boy helping his father in the vineyard and gardening and the work of a child helping the family in the grocery shop or working for a carpenter are valued in this framework. In addition, to earn direct additional financial income, apprenticeship for pay, work in a workshop, helping with daily house cleaning and child labour in the form of a daily wage are defined as child labour. In addition, to earn their own pocket money, contribute to the family budget or meet school expenses, peddling, shining shoes and selling the family's vineyard and garden produce on the street and in squares in their own name and for their own account are classified as child labour in the street economy. This study is a literature review on child labour in the street economy with national and global examples.

Before the industrial revolution, the working child was ‘an auxiliary or unseen actor in the labour market,’ but after the industrial revolution, the child became a ‘required and visible worker.’ The former criterion is still the case in many countries including developed countries. In Turkey ‘having child labour in small-scale workplaces with less than three employees and agricultural areas with less than 50 employees is not prohibited’. This makes the situation prone to the exploitation of child labour in these areas. In this country, one out of every two working children is in the agricultural field, and one out of every six children is in the industrial field. The causes of child labour in Turkey are described as poverty, inability to benefit from/access educational services, migration from rural to urban areas, unemployment of adult family members, a tradition, shortcomings and ineffective implementation of the legislation, and employers' demand and irregular migration. The results include mental, physical and spiritual problems. In this context, protecting children, the most sensitive and vulnerable individuals of the society, from the consequences of risky working environments should be an important and primary goal of the whole world.

This chapter aims to evaluate the problem of child labour exploitation in the world. In this framework, the definition of the concept, the causes, the chronology of global regulations on the topic, the risks that child labourers face are given. The basic result of the chapter is the recognition of the importance of the relationship between child labour and economic conditions. Accordingly, when the wealth levels of countries increase, the number of child labourer decreases.

The crime of genocide, which caused terrible losses to humanity throughout history, was legally defined with the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide after the World War II. The actions of killing children in a certain group, harming them both physically and mentally or transferring children to other groups can be counted as the elements of genocide. In this respect, children who are subject of the physical acts of genocide come to the fore when considering the conditions of children in the framework of genocide. However, children affected by the acts of genocide are not limited with this category. This study aims to show the extent of the effects of genocide on children and focuses on four categories of children who are victims of genocide cases. The first of these is the children who were directly subjected to acts of genocide, the second is the juvenile pushed to crime during the acts of genocide, the third is the children who witnessed the genocide and the fourth is the children who are born after sexual violence during the genocide.

Children are the primary group most affected by all sorts of social and political developments in a society, whether negative or positive. The disintegration of the social fabric, the destabilisation of a country and the breakdown of political and social security pose a greater threat to children and expose them to greater harm compared to other social strata. Children, whose family integrity in cities, villages and towns has been reduced to dust by the civil war that has raged in Afghanistan for over 40 years, are the most exposed to this violence. Millions of Afghan children have been deprived of modern educational opportunities. On the other hand, the children have been forced to bear the economic burden of the household due to the loss of the source of income for the families as the fathers died in terror attacks. Add to this the psychological problems suffered by the children, as well as the physical abuse of boys, a bitter and archaic picture emerges. In addition, girls are forced to be married off to influential older men, sometimes the age of their grandfathers, and boys are given weapons at an early age, only to be offered to unlawful organisations as fighters to be deployed in conflict zones after harsh and difficult training. This threatens the very nature of what human and children's rights stand for. In this study, using the figures and statistics from UNICEF, Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission and other institutions such situations of human rights and children's rights in this country are analysed.

In this article, the impact displacement due to war conditions has on children and their families will be explored with particular focus on Syrian children and families. It is observed that during local, regional and/or global wars, those who suffer most are the non-combatant civilians, particularly families and children. This phenomenon was observed in 2010 when protests against the economic situation triggered the Arab Revolt. These revolts commenced in Tunisia, eventually spreading to other parts of the Middle East. In the midst of these events the Syrian issue acquired great importance. The demonstrations which began in 2011, aiming at Başşar Al-Asad's resignation from his post in Syria, started as an internal war. However, they eventually led to the involvement of other regional and trans-regional actors, turning into a crisis. The unrest now continues as a low-profile crisis. As in previous wars, civilians, especially families with children, have been the main victims in Syria. The intense fighting and increasing terrorist activities forced most non-combatant Syrian civilians and families with children to flee their country. Most opted to immigrate to safer countries, particularly Turkey and in Europe, searching for better living conditions. This article highlights the bad experiences Syrians had when they immigrated. Existing Turkish and European policies might be amongst various factors which trigger immigrants' bad experiences. They require closer observation so one can better understand the processes in action. Against this backdrop, this paper examines how Syrian children have been affected by the internal war in their country, which has been ongoing since 2011, and how Turkey treats Syrian children as part of its humanitarian-oriented immigration policy.

Despite the fact that the rights of the child began to be discussed in the nineteenth century, they came to the fore after the world wars in the twentieth century. Children, who were considered to belong to their fathers during the agricultural capitalism period before the Industrial Revolution, were also used for domestic labour. Children began to break away from their homes with the Industrial Revolution, after this long period of almost no rights. During this period, child labour, which is cheaper than adult labour and seen as the lever of capitalist accumulation, has become an important part of production. In the second half of the nineteenth century, through the 1920s, called the ‘child rescue age’, compulsory education came to the fore as a way of disciplining children. The perception that children are a group that needs to be protected as a separate category and not as a property reveals the necessity to regulate their working conditions and to ensure their rights. In this regard, the Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child realised the first real progress in 1924. Then, after the Second World War, which brought children's rights to almost a halt, the Declaration of Rights of the Child was signed in 1959. Both of the declarations rely heavily on protection and care services. The touchstone of the development of child rights is the Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 20 November 1989. The Convention became the human rights convention that was approved by the largest number of countries ever. It is the only human rights convention that uniquely combines civil, political, social, cultural, and human rights. Despite all these developments, children continue not to be regarded as subjects and to be exploited in the production of surplus value as the reserve army of labour.

A healthy society consists of physically, mentally and psychologically healthy individuals. In this respect, it is crucial to raise children as healthy individuals in every sense. Children's rights can be defined as the rights stipulating to protect our children from harm and abuse; give them a chance to be raised as emotionally healthy individuals and provide their basic needs such as nutrition and shelter. The child should have the right to adequate nutrition and a safe haven. In this context, it should be a primary goal for everyone to enable children, who are the future of society, to benefit from their physical environments as equally as possible.

Children are people's gateway to the future; they are 30.3% of the world's population. Childhood is a stage that has a great impact on adulthood and children being healthy individuals. For this reason, child poverty and childhood conditions are very important for individual and community life. Cities are places where people live, and more than 50% of the world's population lives there. In the cities, whose numbers and sizes have increased over time, the crimes committed have also increased and diversified. For this reason, it has become increasingly difficult to provide urban security today. The aim of this study is to show the relationship between child poverty and urban safety, by carrying out an overview of the global perspective and examining the case of Turkey.

Parents are children's first line of protection. However, millions of children all over the world experience a lack of parental care. The reasons for this separation are varied, such as poverty, being abused and neglected, the death of parents, being abandoned, trafficking, migration, living on the street, being displaced or health issues. From the child's rights perspective, parental care is a priority for a child's best interest. In this respect, most countries have social protection policies to support families with their children. When parental care is not possible, states generally take responsibility by providing appropriate services, including residential care, kinship care, foster care, other forms of family-based care or adoption. Within this framework, this study aims to provide an overview of the world's children who lack parental care in the light of the theoretical background and the latest research.

The relationship between nature and humans has changed as the human mind dominates nature. Humans have started to break away from nature, the whole of which they are a part. However, since environmental problems are among the most important agenda items that need to be resolved, the search for alternatives to the current ecological, social and economic understanding has accelerated. Today, environmental organisations that tend to protect nature are increasing, and the approach to nature–human harmony is gaining importance. Starting from the acceptance that the problem should be defined well in order to solve the problem in this study, a general impression of environmental movements within the scope of the relevant literature is presented. In order to ensure the sustainability of the environment, it is necessary to reorganise children's education support policies, to reduce consumption habits that may cause environmental pollution, to encourage a simple and environmentally friendly life and to raise awareness of children on these issues. Based on these ideas, national and international environmental organisations have implemented many educational projects for children in order to produce common policies for the protection and improvement of the environment.

In the Bollywood film Crow's Egg (Manikandan, 2015), two Indian children eat crow eggs that they collect from trees (taking three out of four eggs and leaving one with the mother crow) because they cannot afford chicken eggs. Because their father is in prison, the children make money by selling pieces of coal that fall off trains to support their working mother. Interestingly, the film shows no images of school in the lives of the two children, aged about seven and 10, and their friends next to them. Unfortunately, there are millions of children in the world who have no room for school in their lives, and they are not just numbers, they are individuals.

Being a child in an undeveloped country with a broken social structure actually means bearing the heavy burden of a precarious life and struggling to survive at an earlier age compared to the peers living in developed and wealthy countries. The majority of children in the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region struggle for food, security, a good education, a good life and a better future. In LAC, a heterogeneous region in terms of economy and society, childhood mostly signifies a fragile period of an individual's life due to poverty, inequality and insecurity. Within this context, this study aims to explore the compatibility of conditional cash transfer (CCT) programmes implemented in the region to fight child poverty. The leading premises of the study are that the majority of individuals under the age of 18 strive to pursue their lives in unsuitable circumstances and that many governments take childhood and juvenile problems as a matter of concern and try to find solutions to challenges in this respect. Furthermore, the main hypothesis in this regard is that CCT programmes – though the realisation and the impacts vary depending on the countries – could produce some positive effects in fighting child poverty despite the would-be flaws in the implementation processes.

Various problems in the field of children's rights require governments in all countries to take urgent action to establish preventive mechanisms. In this respect, governments are increasingly organising private specialised units on sensitive issues concerning children's rights, which hopefully may prevent further abuse of children. The existence of structures specialising in children's rights is extremely necessary in terms of empowering children to express their problems and wishes. In this study, the duties and functions of the Children's Ombudsman are discussed using examples from different countries.

In this study, cultural diplomacy, which is a sub-branch of intercultural communication and public diplomacy in the perspective of public diplomacy, and the role played by children in the development of cultural diplomacy, in particular, were investigated. It has analysed the kind of contribution the practices that children are in the centre contribute to cultural diplomacy. As a result of this, it was determined that practices such as the ‘23 April National Sovereignty and Children's Day’, which are present in, for example, Turkey, contribute significantly to public diplomacy and intercultural communication. Moreover, in doing this, they have analysed the fact that being chosen as a child actor in public diplomacy has flexed the political approach among states and made the perception of propaganda less felt. As a result of the study, it has been determined that countries give children a central role in their cultural diplomacy practices. In addition, it has been understood that countries have established contact with many countries and societies in this way. In the case of Turkey, it has been determined that in the cultural diplomacy practices of Turkish organisations, mostly Muslim or Turkish origin countries invite their children to the events.

Recent advances in digital technologies and their accessibility with ease have become indispensable for children. In contrast to expectations and many regulations, children use digital technologies effectively in many areas from an early age. Digital technologies and digital media, commonly used in entertainment, learning and everyday activities, cover several user-induced problems and challenges. These uses are user-based, not technology-based, which highlights conscious, controlled and time-limited applications that are suitable for their developmental levels. On the other hand, technology has many positive effects, such as providing children with efficient and rich learning opportunities, providing concrete experiences, and increasing their academic success and interest. Also, digital technologies are frequently preferred in learning environments due to the visual preparation of technology-supported materials, addressing more than one sensory organ at the same time, and the inclusion of interaction components. However, in this process, the selection and use of current technologies and software suitable for children's development levels and the factors that need to be considered in the process of use are important to make the learning process effective.

Technology usage habits and the development of creative arts experiences and productivity are effective. In 2007, Lui argued that digital art can integrate the concept of information technology, which is at the forefront of the development of the child, with art education based on the dynamics of digital culture and art. In the discovery of artistic acquisitions, it is seen that they used digital art for play in the early stages of children's lives. In the stages of development, they were seen to improve their reading, writing and arithmetic skills, respectively. In young children, it was seen as a result of research that used information gathering and artistic expression skills more effectively with multi-interactive games. We see that digital visual culture and visual intelligence, technologies such as computer games, virtual museums, movies and the internet, change children's aesthetic perspective. Digital culture art gives children and young people who are centered on learning with their own dynamics the opportunity to produce art with new technologies, expressing themselves and carrying out more activities that are independent. Children can also be brought together with artists, software developers, designers, engineers and experts in various professional groups. While the child is using the possibilities of the digital world unlimitedly, he and the experts have developed their creative thinking skills and processed new records in their visual memory with different aesthetic perspectives. Children will be examined in this study to see how they develop and benefit from an awareness of artwork, production, creativity and discovery using digital special technological equipment.

This chapter will focus on the development of children's literature in the western world. The topic will be discussed with reference to the historical development of children's literature, previous sample works and the concepts of childhood, which have been changing day by day. As it is known, the first literary texts presented to children are verbal. With the spread of the printing press, written literature and changing social perceptions led to the emergence of a separate literary idea for children. Tales, myths, legends, nursery rhymes, and children's songs, as well as the alphabet books and the texts in holy books, which are among the first oral products, are considered the first texts that children encounter. However, the spread of the idea of humanism enables the questioning of the position of the child in society. In this way, works that are suitable for the world of imagination have started to be produced, considering the interests, needs and perceptual differences of children. The Aesopian fables in the 17th century, the Works by J.J. Rousseau in the 18th century for children and his liberal perspective, Robinson Crusoe by D. Defoe and Gulliver's Travels by J. Swift are among the basic works of children's literature. The perception of children and childhood that changes in every century is reflected in literary works.

Rivers are very close to Indian culture and civilisation. Indians treat rivers as holy and connect them to their faith. Human-induced activities unintentionally pollute the water bodies. The present case revolves around an innovative social enterprise – PHOOL, which deals with the recycling of flowers offered by devotees at temples. Thus, preventing thousands of kilograms of floral waste from being dumped into rivers daily and polluting them. The idea was conceived to save the most revered river – the Ganges. These flowers are mostly loaded with pesticides and insecticides, which further merge with river water making it even more toxic, endangering marine lives. PHOOL collects flowers from various places of worship and recycles them into handcrafted incense sticks and biodegradable Styrofoam. This unique venture has also been patented for its process and technology of floral waste recycling. Their mission is to save and preserve the river Ganges and empower marginalised women by providing employment opportunities while at the same time giving a livelihood and a future to Indian child and the generations to come. The child could now afford schooling, in hopes of a better economic future in a healthier environment while maintaining all societal traditions. It is essentially a case of social entrepreneurship that aims to help readers understand the intricacies of starting and surviving a social enterprise and ensuring continual sustainability. To create the case, an interview was carried out with Ms Ekta Jain (Associate, Marketing and Communications, PHOOL), as well as a literature review and data were collected on the social enterprise and significant events that take place in the Indian social entrepreneurship ecosystem. PHOOL is a case on ensuring a balanced approach between the economy, environment and society. It aims at protecting and creating a balance between the environment, the economy and the society, generating a new inflow to the economy, providing a purpose in life for those most in need of it and a livelihood free from pollution and deprivation, and making the world a better place to live in. It is creating a balance between societal needs, the environment that requires protection, the economy and ensuring continuity.