"Policing the Young" -Criminalization, Vilification, and the Securitization of Child Activism

This paper examines how the criminalization and vilification of child human rights defenders (CHRDs) reveal broader mechanisms of social control rooted in discursive, legal, and symbolic power. It argues that children’s activism - manifested in protests, advocacy, and digital mobilization - constitutes a form of political agency that challenges dominant structures of authority and unsettles normative boundaries of legitimate participation. Growing evidence shows that children’s dissent is frequently met with resistance, suppression, or discreditation, raising urgent questions about the conditions under which their agency is recognized or denied. The analysis brings together four theoretical frameworks to understand this dynamic: Johan Galtung’s concepts of structural and cultural violence reveal how institutional environments normalize exclusion; Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of linguistic and symbolic power explains how children's speech is delegitimized in public discourse; Michel Foucault’s notion of biopolitics sheds light on the regulation of children as political subjects; and securitization theory (Wæver) illustrates how children’s activism is discursively framed as a security threat to justify exceptional forms of control. These approaches are brought into dialogue to trace overlapping logics of marginalization. Empirically, the paper examines two case studies through qualitative discourse analysis: one focusing on legal mechanisms of criminalization in national protest laws, and another on media representations of CHRDs in mainstream press coverage. Rather than offering a universal account, these cases illustrate how specific social and political contexts can shape the repression of young activists. Ultimately, the paper seeks to reconceptualize CHRDs not as passive recipients of protection, but as full political subjects whose actions demand recognition and whose voices deserve protection. By doing so, it contributes to ongoing efforts to challenge the structural silencing of children’s political agency and reframe their place in democratic and human rights discourses.