U.N. panel tells Britain to improve child protection

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) - A United Nations panel called on Britain on Friday to stem persistently high rates of violence and sexual abuse against children at home and in school.

Authorities should also ensure that no one under the age of 18 is deployed to combat areas, and raise its minimum age for armed forces recruitment from 16 to 18, it said.

The U.N. Committee of the Rights of the Child issued its conclusions after examining the records of seven countries, including Britain, at a three-week session that ended on Friday.

In Britain, the 18 independent experts said they remained "alarmed at the still high prevalence of violence, abuse and neglect against children, including in the home, and at the lack of a comprehensive nationwide strategy in this regard."

Mechanisms should be set up to monitor the extent of violence, sexual abuse, neglect, or mistreatment, including within the family, at school and in institutional care, it said.

Corporal punishment of children should be banned explicitly in the home as well as elsewhere, it added.

The U.N. body monitors compliance with the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by 193 countries including Britain. Britain has also ratified an optional protocol on children in armed conflict.

Tom Jeffery of the department for children, schools and families, told the panel that authorities were committed to securing the health and wellbeing of every child in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland.

AREAS OF HOSTILITIES

The delegation also said that new guidelines ensured that military personnel under age 18 were withdrawn from their units before deployment to areas of hostilities. No child had been deployed into such areas since July 2005, it said.

The committee said it was "concerned that children may still be potentially deployed to areas of hostilities and involved in hostilities." British forces serve in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Convention defines children as those aged under 18. The committee expressed concern that one in three recruits in the regular armed forces was under 18, and that recruitment could target vulnerable ethnic minorities and poor families.

The panel also urged authorities to fight discrimination and social stigmatisation of minority children, including Roma and migrants. Asylum-seekers under the age of 18 should only be detained as a last resort, it stressed.

Britain should also end the use of harmful devices on children, including taser guns, which the experts said police are authorised to use in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

And the panel said authorities should also reconsider the use of so-called "mosquito devices," high-pitched sonic gadgets used to disperse unruly teenagers. These may violate their right to freedom of association and peaceful assembly, it said.

There are an estimated 3,500 mosquito devices, which emit a piercing noise only detectable by the sharp ears of the young, in use outside shops and businesses across the country.

The experts voiced concern that six children have died in custody since 1999. There was a "high prevalence of self-injurious behaviour" among children in custody, it said.

(Editing by Laura MacInnis)