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This article draws on child activists' experiences in Bangladesh and Ghana, who mobilised to stop potential child marriages from their respective Child Forums and Children's Parliaments. Case studies were undertaken with 75 child activists, 10 girls whose child marriages had been stopped, and 22 adult stakeholders. The children's activism disrupted intergenerational relations – unsettling adults' attitudes towards children – and depended on such relations – children were successful in stopping child marriages because they drew on critical social capital and mobilised key stakeholders. Children's activism thus has lessons for children's participation literature more generally, in the synergies between children's mobilisation and intergenerational relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last 30 years, remarkable efforts have been made to understand and support children and young people's participation rights outlined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). Despite these efforts, challenges remain consistently the same, such as tokenism, lack of sustainability, and accountability. This article reviews the progress and challenges for children and young people's participation. It then considers the potential of activism as a relatively novel concept for the children's rights field. Drawing on activism literature more generally, and considering examples of child activism, the article explores the potential of identity politics and social movements to challenge adult power, growing on-line activism and tensions between best interests, protection and participation. The article concludes that activism recognises children as political actors and problem solvers. The article develops the idea of an 'ecology of participation', which values respectful intergenerational relationships that develop 'critical social capital' for child activism and multiple participation forms - ranging from the more conventional, to protest, to transformation. This more extended conceptualisation of children and young people's participation builds on all the participation rights within the UNCRC, recognising them as minimum standards rather than final destinations, to create more expansive understandings and practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children and young people's participation is an ever-growing demand. Thirty years on from the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child's adoption, however, fundamental challenges continue for participation that are widely recognised cross-nationally but remain stubbornly consistent. As a way in to considering the children and young people's participation literature more generally, all articles referring to participation in their titles were identified from The International Journal of Children's Rights. These 56 articles were analysed to identify trends, challenges and opportunities. The analysis found: a remarkably consistent narrative on participation over the 30 years; limitations on domains considered, geography and conceptual clarity; and far more written about challenges than solutions. Drawing on these findings and considering the participation literature more generally, the article recommends that the field expands its geographic and intellectual boundaries, uses powerful concepts like agency, competency and autonomy with greater precision, and explores fresh ideas like child protoganism, activism and children as human rights defenders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The 'shadow of the law' helped child activists mobilise legal officials to intervene in potential child marriages. • Child activism was not an isolated, individualistic activity; it relied on relationships having already been established. • Child activists were successful because they had the expertise to access conclusive administrative information to persuade powerful adults to act. • Child activists were willing and able to act urgently, taking the initiative to find such information and bring it to the attention of local officials. • Child activism should become a conceptual and practical challenge to the children's participation field, learning from the associated field of youth activism. There is ever-increasing global and local attention to children's participation rights. As activities have proliferated, so have concerns about children's participation having an impact on decision-making. This article looks to what can be learned conceptually and practically from children's activism, where children have actively changed decisions in their communities. This article examines one such example, where groups of children in Bangladesh stopped the illegal marriages of children. Research was undertake with two Child Forums, involving 36 child activists. Further interviews were undertaken with girls whose marriages had been stopped and adults who had key roles in the child activism, such as local police officers and civil servants. The analysis finds that: (1) the legal context was critical to the child activists' success, not because parents were arrested but because children could mobilise local officials; (2) the activism was collective rather than individual, supported by a nexus of relationships; (3) successes depended on children's persistent and urgent activity, in order to mobilise other people's attention and actions. The article concludes that the children's participation field should attend to the conceptual lessons from activism and its practical contributions in: recognising the critical importance of the 'shadow of the law'; building children's political capital, and supporting the spaces and time for children to mobilise alongside educational demands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]