BRITAIN: The United Nations expressed alarm yesterday at the level of violence against children in Britain and urged the government to outlaw corporal punishment.
It also said it was concerned at the number of children held at juvenile detention centres, at child poverty and at the high rate of teenage pregnancies.
The findings were contained in a report by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, which regularly monitors the performance of signatory states in meeting their obligations under a UN convention on children's rights.
It was the second time Britain had been subjected to scrutiny. The committee said it regretted that some recommendations made in 1995 had not been heeded, notably its call for a total ban on corporal punishment.
Although corporal punishment is banned in schools, Britain lets parents use "reasonable" force with unruly children.
"We are talking about alternative forms of disciplining children, because we are not saying that children should not be disciplined," the committee chairman, Mr Jacob Doek, told a news briefing.
"But is it necessary to hit them over the head or kick them in the butt?" The Geneva-based body also called for security forces to stop using plastic bullets for riot control in Northern Ireland because of the possibly lethal threat they posed to children.
The UN committee said one or two children died in Britain every week in their own homes as a result of violence and increasing incidences of neglect. There was also a "high prevalence" of violence, including sexual violence, against children "within families, in schools, institutions, in the care system and in detention", it said.
Since its last review, the committee said the number of children between the ages of 12 and 14 in detention centres had risen and that overall the trend was towards detaining more children at earlier ages and for less serious offences.
Under the UN convention, detention should only be used as a last resort and for the shortest appropriate time, it said.
Youths and young girls were not always separated from adults in prisons, while juvenile institutions were generally poorly staffed, with bullying, self-harm and suicides prevalent.
The committee was particularly concerned with figures showing that between April 2000 and February 2002, 296 children were injured in "restraint and control" actions by prison staff.
It urged sex education for all children and free contraception.
NSPCC Director Ms Mary Marsh said: "The current law of 'reasonable chastisement', devised in the 19th century, is well past its sell-by date.
"It sends out a dangerous message to parents that hitting children is acceptable and safe, which it clearly is not." - (Reuters, PA)