CONSTRUCTING THE CATEGORIES OF GIRLS AND GIRL CHILDREN IN THE SOCIAL AND LEGAL SYSTEM. A MATTER OF DEFINITION?

Should girls and girl children fall into the same age category?Can the generic macro category of children, provided by internationallaw starting with the Convention on the Rights of theChild, be considered adequate to satisfy the needs of social andlegal protection of the different phases of development towardsadulthood? These questions can raise serious sociological andjuridical complications. As a result, without a clear definitionin place, also the category of girl children risks being confusedwith the category of girls, and might not be noticed for its specificcharacteristics and needs. By using intersectional feministtheory, this analysis proposes a reflection on the necessity toadopt, both at a sociological and at a legal level, a more precisedefinition and conceptualisation of the terms girls and girlchildren.