Child protection, gender and rights

Abstract

This chapter argues that the law, and in particular the Human Rights Act, places only limited contraints on intervention in the family when it comes to child protection. It goes on to examine the extent to which recent non-legal initiatives make families more visible and so facilitate monitoring and intervention by welfare professionals. These measures have the potential to make families, and in particular mothers, more susceptible to surveillance and to the imposition of coercive methods in order to transform them into 'good' mothers.