Ambivalence, Conflation, and Invisibility: A Feminist Analysis of State Enactment of Children's Rights in Peru

This article examines municipal children's ombudsmen's offices (Defensorías Municipal del Niño y el Adolescente), which are a nationwide attempt at state enactment of children's rights in Peru. Drawing on feminist analysis, the article outlines some of the key assumptions that are mobilized in children's rights practices and questions the implications of such assumptions. It begins with a historical overview of children's municipal defensorías as well as an explanation of how these spaces currently function and how they are used. The conception of children's rights in these spaces is largely technocratic, with the family serving as the primary site for intervention. On the one hand, this conception of children and their rights has mobilized the state to support poor women's claims for child support from men. Yet at the same time, this article suggests, this technical (and mainly economic) interpretation of children's rights turns impoverished women first and foremost into mothers and depends on a rubric that feminizes childhood and children's rights, making children viable actors only if seen through the advocacy of their mothers (and within individual families). This article therefore addresses the implications of the ambiguous consequences in these offices, which seem to help the women who use them in the short term by providing critical financial assistance while also hindering the chance for long-term or more structural change. © 2012 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.