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Britain violates rights of child says UN The government's plan to put children at the heart of
its election strategy had a setback last night when the United Nations
voiced “grave concern” about the violation of children's rights in
Britain. Mr Doek said: “The UK will next be examined by my committee in 2009. That is too long to wait for children whose human rights are being violated today. Urgent action is required to remedy the plight of children in custody ... many children are officially classed as too vulnerable for prison service custody, and there are continuing and grave concerns about children's access to education, health care and protection. “My committee recommended in 2002 that detention should only be used as a last resort, yet the UK still locks up more children than most other industrialised countries. Why is this tolerated?” The alliance said that 3,337 children thought too vulnerable for custody were sent to young offender institutions last year. Control and restraint was used 11,593 times on children aged 12-14 in secure training centres in the past four years. The two children who died in custody were Gareth Myatt, 15, who died in April after being restrained at Rainsbrook secure training centre, and Adam Rickwood, 14, who died in August at Hassockfield secure training centre. The alliance said: “The slow pace of change comes against a backdrop of 3.6 million children ... in poverty. Only 600,000 children have been taken out of poverty since the prime minister made his pledge in 1999 to eradicate child poverty within 20 years. If the goal is to be achieved by 2019, every day, between then and now, about 660 children will have to be taken out of poverty.” The figures are expected to be confirmed on Wednesday by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, though it will suggest the government is on course to reach its target of reducing child poverty by a quarter by the end of 2004. The alliance said the government had ignored the UN's call to ban corporal punishment. The Children's Act allowed parents to hit children so long as they did not mark them; ministers had diluted the powers of the children's commissioner for England, and the goals of the act were “a poor relation of the internationally agreed standards”. It said asylum-seeking children could be jailed for entering the UK without valid immigration documents; immigration agencies were exempt from a duty to safeguard their welfare; there was discrimination against traveller children; and ethnic minority youngsters were twice as likely to be permanently excluded from school as white children. A Home Office spokeswoman said: “The government takes the safety of juveniles in custody very seriously.”
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