Consent and participation: paradoxes respecting children's rights.

The International Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC, 1989) guarantees children's rights, but exercising these rights is often hampered by a variety of factors, including lack of knowledge and socio-economic inequalities. The CAPACITI project aims to support children’s participation and the effective respect of these rights.
The article provides an overview of how rights are applied. It explores the notions of consent and participation, seeing them as crucial points of tension in exercising rights.
On the basis of a systematic review of the literature, we examine publications that address children's rights through the prism of consent and participation.
A PRISMA systematic review was conducted using keywords such as "Consent", "Children/Adolescents", "Knowledge of rights", and "Participation" on various databases. From 1466 initial references, 84 relevant articles were then selected. Children's rights are a source of tension, pulling stakeholders between the imperatives of protection and empowerment, which can lead to a failure to respect these rights. Consent is a dynamic process that is often legally denied to minors, while participation is often merely a symbolic gesture that takes little account of the child. The data collected seems to indicate that the very condition being a child weakens a child’s access to rights.
Conclusions: An ecosystemic, individualised and relational approach is needed to ensure that children's rights are respected. This requires that children's input be valued, that professionals be better informed and trained, and that consent and participation be co-constructed to ensure genuine autonomy.