Abstract
Access to safe and clean water is fundamental to children’s rights to health, nutrition, sanitation, education, and survival. Existing studies on water governance in Indonesia are largely dominated by technocratic approaches that emphasize infrastructure, service provision, and water quality, while paying limited attention to children’s rights and needs as a central consideration in water governance. This study employs a qualitative systematic literature review (SLR) of academic publications, policy documents, and institutional reports concerning water governance in Jakarta, Pekalongan, and Mataram. The study revealed that the fulfillment of children’s rights to water remains constrained by fragmented institutional responsibilities, limited participation of children in decision making processes, and the dominance of infrastructure-based performance indicators that inadequately capture the realization of children’s rights. As its primary theoretical contribution, this article proposes Care-Centered Water Governance, a conceptual framework that integrates Child Rights-Based Approach (CRA), Tronto’s Ethics of Care and Caring Democracy to evaluate the children’s right to water through shared responsibility, democratic participation, and responsive governance

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