Resistance and Acceptance on the Diffusion of Global Norms of Child Participation in Indonesia

The definition of what is important and who needs to be protected in the world community always changes. In 1990, through the adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the world community is determined to protect and make children a comprehensive person, complete with a series of rights as human beings. The consequence of CRC is that children are deemed necessary to engage in decision-making processes whose outcomes will affect the growth of their self-development. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) as a UN agency dealing with child welfare issues and international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) working on the issue of children rights are important norm entrepreneurs in spreading this norm. This study aims to analyze the diffusion of norms of child participation in Indonesia by using the conceptual framework of Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink on norms diffusion and of Amitav Acharya’s concept on localization of norms. Using qualitative methods, this study found that within the Indonesian government, the diffusion of child participation norms has reached the final stage of norm diffusion, called internalization. In contrast, within Indonesian society the diffusion of the norms raises two types of resistance namely cultural and religious resistance