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The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) requires governments to invest the maximum available resources in meeting their human rights obligations to children. That one in three of our children lives in poverty is proof enough that this is not happening: we are the fourth richest country in the world, yet we have the highest child poverty rate in Europe. Despite Tony Blair's promise in 1999 that his government would end child poverty in a generation, there is no national strategy for eradicating child poverty.


Another policy area that deeply concerns NGOs is the government's approach to children involved in crime. The age of criminal responsibility in the UK is one of the lowest in Europe - eight in Scotland and 10 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Most European countries do not define or treat children as criminals before the age of 13. In Belgium the age of criminal responsibility is 18 and in Argentina, Portugal and Spain it is 16.

The CRC states that children must be locked up only as a last resort and for the shortest period of time. Yet we have the highest numbers of locked-up children in Europe. And since 1995, 14 children have killed themselves in prison - most, if not all, with care histories.

When the Committee on the Rights of the Child last examined the UK government in 1995, it strongly urged law reform on corporal punishment. Since then, hitting children in private schools has been banned - it was prohibited in state schools from 1987 - but there has been no progress in reforming the law on parents hitting children. With disturbing statistics that 77 children died in 1999-2000 as a result of abuse and neglect, we cannot afford to be complacent. In Sweden, where all forms of parental physical punishment were banned in 1979, only four child abuse deaths were recorded between 1981 and 1996.

In November last year, the government announced its decision to do nothing, saying it wanted to "avoid heavy-handed intrusion into family life". Yet it passionately pushes its zero tolerance of violence between adults in the home. Article 19 of the convention grants all babies and children the right to be free from all forms of violence. The committee will not be impressed by the government's lack of action and is certain to reiterate that the defence of "reasonable chastisement" should be removed from statute.

The government's discriminatory and inadequate treatment of asylum seekers will also attract criticism in Geneva. Although unaccompanied children are not currently subject to the compulsory dispersal system, the prospect of being uprooted on reaching 18 makes planning for education and employment extremely difficult.


The Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill proposes to segregate asylum seekers in accommodation centres. Three centres are planned, all in the countryside and each holding up to 750 children and adults. Education and health care will be provided on site, making integration virtually impossible.

There are many other aspects of the convention that are not being implemented, such as the provision to actively publicise children's rights to children and adults; and the requirement to ensure all children have equal access to education that is geared to fully developing their personality, talents and mental and physical abilities. Young disabled people's right to active participation in their communities is only partially recognised in law; and all children's right to express and have their views considered whenever decisions are made that affect them is still not consistently respected.

When the committee publishes its conclusions in October, children's rights advocates across the UK will have a powerful tool to persuade, cajole and shame the government into action. Our ultimate task is to get senior politicians to accept children as a political priority - a job that would become much easier if we had an independent children's rights commissioner with the resources and political clout to get children and their human rights noticed.

Wales already has a commissioner, and Northern Ireland and Scotland are well on the way. An announcement from Westminster that England's 11 million children are to get their own champion and watchdog would be the first serious sign that the government wants to honour its obligations to children.