Abstract
The children's rights and child protection sectors are at a critical juncture: will they evolve to reflect and respond to changing conceptualisations in the 21st century or will they continue to reproduce 19th‐ and 20th‐century preoccupations with saving child victims? Informed by systematic reviews of the English‐ and Latin American academic literature in Spanish and Portuguese and key informant interviews with international stakeholders, this paper fosters global dialogue with some Global South and Global North perspectives about the interconnections of children's rights. It explores current conceptualisations of child participation and protection, and concludes that children's rights will only progress after recognition of limitations inherent to current conceptualisations.