Parliamentary joint committee to hold children’s rights inquiry

Parliament’s joint committee on human rights will hold a short inquiry into children’s rights in the New Year.

MPs and peers want to focus on children in detention, including the use of restraint and deaths in custody; the criminalisation of children; discrimination on grounds of disability or age; discrimination in the education system; asylum-seeking children; child trafficking victims; and meeting the government’s target to end child poverty.

The inquiry follows the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child’s assessment this year of the UK government’s progress in applying the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child to children in this country.

The committee criticised levels of child poverty and the use of antisocial behaviour orders. However, it welcomed the government’s decision to remove reservations on the application of the convention to children in custody and in the immigration system.

This practical implications of this decision will be assessed by the joint committee.

It is calling for submissions that are no longer than 2,500 words by 13 February, 2009.

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