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The government is still breaching children’s human rights in England despite accepting the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1991, according to new research, writes Amy Taylor.

Youth justice and refugee children are among key areas of concern, according to the study by the Secretariat of the Children’s Rights Alliance for England, a coalition of more than 230 organisations committed to children’s rights.

The government should “increase considerably” its efforts to implement the convention, said Jaap Doek, chair of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child.

The Home Office said that it did not agree that the government’s policies on juvenile justice and immigration were in breach of the convention.

“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?” he said.

“Urgent action” was particularly required to improve the plight of children in custody, said Doek.

In October 2002 the committee made 78 recommendations to the UK on law, policy and practice as stated in the convention but in the past year progress has only been made on 17 of them.