The report of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights concerning children’s rights came out today, 20 November. It addresses the UNICEF report that places British children near the bottom of a scale of industrialised countries in terms of their well-being, putting much of this down to the negative image of young people in the media. It also focuses on the UK government’s foot-dragging over implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), which it recommends should be incorporated in law. The report is a damning indictment of the position of children in this country.

The report notes the “discriminatory attitudes of medical professionals towards disabled children”, and that several groups of children have problems being enrolled in school or continuing or re-entering education, citing children with disabilities, children of Travellers, Roma children, asylum-seeking children, dropouts and non-attendees, looked-after children and teenage mothers. The Committee makes detailed recommendations, including that the UK should “provide additional resources to ensure the right of all children to a truly inclusive education, including for children from disadvantaged, marginalised and ‘school-distant’ groups”, and that it should use permanent or temporary exclusions as a last resort. It cites the observation of the second UN Committee on the Convention of the Rights of the Child concerning the lack of suitable educational provision within local areas to meet the particular needs of children with special educational needs and disabilities, and laments the absence of “a national strategy for including all disabled pupils in mainstream schools”. Finally, the Report expresses its disappointment that the Government has rejected even the modest proposal that the UNCRC be made the framework of local Children and Young People’s Plans. This latter would surely be the suitable subject of a focused campaign by voluntary groups.