Draft legislation also proposes maximum fine of €150,000 in most serious cases
The French parliament has voted to make school bullying a criminal offence punishable by up to three years in prison, as MPs said society needed a wake-up call on the seriousness of children targeting their peers.
The proposed law was supported by Emmanuel Macron’s education minister, Jean-Michel Blanquer.
Continue reading...Lawyers and campaigners fear decision not to grant appeal against conviction risks silencing other victims of domestic abuse
A mother jailed for harming her baby has accused the courts of “injustice” after judges accepted she was a victim of abuse but ruled against an application for an appeal against her conviction made on the grounds that her violent ex-partner coerced her to lie at her trial.
The woman, known as “Jenny”, was convicted in 2017 of causing or allowing serious harm after her child sustained skull fractures and bleeding on the brain. The baby’s father was her co-defendant but was acquitted on a lesser charge.
Continue reading...Longstanding plague of child abuse and extreme abortion laws fuel crisis, report says
An average of two girls between 10 and 14 give birth every day in Paraguay, thanks to a toxic combination of widespread child abuse and draconian abortion laws, according to a new Amnesty International report.
Paraguay has one of the highest rates of child and teen pregnancy in Latin America, a region that, as a whole, has the second-highest rates in the world.
Continue reading...Children’s Society criticises practice of placing unaccompanied minors in hotels with limited care
Record numbers of unaccompanied child asylum seekers who arrived in the UK on small boats are being accommodated in four hotels along England’s south coast, a situation that the Children’s Society has described as “shocking”.
About 250 unaccompanied children who arrived in small boats are thought to be accommodated in hotels, which Ofsted said was an unacceptable practice.
Continue reading...As an economist I know it makes financial as well as ethical sense to get this world-first vaccine to the millions who need it
I vividly remember the day I learned a harsh lesson in the tragic burden of malaria that too many of us from the African continent have endured. I was 15, living amid the chaos of Nigeria’s Biafran war, when my three-year-old sister fell sick. Her body burning with fever, I tied her on my back and carried her to a medical clinic, a six-mile trek from my home.
We arrived at the clinic to find a huge crowd trying to break through locked doors. I knew my sister’s condition could not wait. I dropped to the ground and crawled between legs, my sister propped listlessly on my back, until I reached an open window and climbed through. By the time I was inside, my sister was barely moving. The doctor worked rapidly, injecting antimalarial drugs and infusing her with fluids to rehydrate her body. In a few hours, she started to revive. If we had waited any longer, my sister might not have survived.
Continue reading...Driver has been charged with five counts of intentional homicide and more charges are pending
Prosecutors in Wisconsin on Tuesday charged a man with intentional homicide in the deaths of five people who were killed when an SUV was driven into a Christmas parade earlier this week that also left 62 people injured, including many children.
Prosecutors say a sixth person, a child, has died and more charges are pending. Several of those injured remain in critical condition.
Continue reading...Second reading of bill to ban marriage for under-18s receives cross-party support
A ban on child marriage in England and Wales came a step closer Friday with cross-party support for a new bill in the House of Commons.
The marriage and civil partnership (minimum age) bill had its second reading in parliament, with government and opposition MPs supporting the private member’s bill brought by Conservative MP Pauline Latham.
Continue reading...Despite mental health and climate concerns, youth believe they can improve the world, survey for World Children’s Day finds
Young people are often seen as having a bleak worldview, plugged uncritically into social media and anxious about the climate crisis, among other pressing issues.
But a global study commissioned by the UN’s children’s agency, Unicef, appears to turn that received wisdom on its head. It paints a picture of children believing that the world is improving with each generation, even while they report anxiety and impatience for change on global heating.
The majority of young people saw serious risks for children online, such as seeing violent or sexually explicit content (78%) or being bullied (79%).
While 64% of those in low- and middle-income countries believed children would be better off economically than their parents, young people in high-income countries had little faith in economic progress. There, fewer than a third of young respondents believed children today would grow up to be better off economically than their parents.
More than a third of young people reported often feeling nervous or anxious, and nearly one in five said they often felt depressed or had little interest in doing things.
On average, 59% of young people said children today faced more pressure to succeed than their parents did.
Continue reading...Marriage of under-18s associated with risk of domestic, sexual and ‘honour’-based violence, say MPs, who will vote on Friday
A bill that would ban child marriage in England and Wales will be presented to parliament for its second reading this week and has been welcomed by campaigners as a “huge stride” forward.
Currently, marriage and civil partnerships are legal at 16 and 17 with parental consent. This is not just out of step with international legislation but also a loophole that is “more often used as a mechanism for abuse”, according to Pauline Latham, MP, who will present her bill on Friday.
Continue reading...Experts alarmed as NHS data shows one in four children in England aged 10 and 11 are obese
Thousands of children are facing “serious” and even “devastating” consequences as a result of weight gain during the pandemic, experts warn, as “alarming” figures reveal one in four 10- and 11-year-olds in England are obese.
Health leaders are calling for a “relentless drive” to boost child health as official NHS data lays bare for the first time how child obesity levels have soared during lockdowns.
Continue reading...When photographer Mary Berridge’s son was diagnosed with Asperger’s, she began to see his world in a new light. She set out to capture a series of everyday – and exceptional – stories, one image at a time
I have been immersed in the world of autism since my son was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome. Graham had many of the traits of autism from when he was a baby: speech and motor skill delays, sensory sensitivities, anxiety in big social gatherings and more. He had seen professionals for evaluations, but did not get a diagnosis until he was seven.
This was a kid who had meltdowns over the sound of a blowdryer one floor up, the feel of a new shirt and the sight of a slice of cherry pie. Our lowest point was when he started refusing to enter homes he hadn’t been in before, or getting so upset at entering a restaurant that he would throw up. At least now I can sort of laugh when I think of the strangers in the grocery store who would approach him, then a cherubic toddler, and ask what his name was. “Mr Stupid Nobody,” was his reply.
Continue reading...Children ate less healthily, took less exercise and had more emotional problems, say researchers
Children in the UK ate fewer vegetables, took less exercise and experienced worsening emotional difficulties following the Covid outbreak, according to a research study.
A biennial survey conducted by investigators at Cardiff University found that primary school-age children reported a sharp increase in “elevated or clinically significant emotional difficulties” in early 2021, compared with the same survey conducted in 2019.
Continue reading...Among under-18s, vaccine uptake is low, and there is a growing issue with misinformation spread on social media and at school. Is there anything a concerned caregiver can do?
Throughout the pandemic, Anna has worked for the NHS. She has seen the effects of Covid-19 first-hand and, although she worked remotely because she was in a vulnerable group, other colleagues – she is a physiotherapist – were deployed to Covid wards at the height of hospital admissions. “At the trust I work for, they’re setting up a long-Covid service,” she says. She comes home and her son Sam, 16, listens to her talk about it – and yet he is adamant that the coronavirus isn’t happening or that, if it is, it’s not serious. “You know: ‘Covid is a load of rubbish – it’s all about control’,” she says. “It’s all very conspiracy theory, a lot of his stuff.” He was adamant from the start that he wouldn’t be having the vaccine if and when it became available for his age group, and he has stuck to it. “He is very resistant,” says Anna. “He is pretty determined not to conform anyway. Part of it, I think, is him being a teenager, and the other bit of it is conspiracy theory: ‘It’s all a big con.’” His main source of information since the start of the pandemic has been social media, says Anna. “He watches a lot of YouTube.”
Just over a month ago, YouTube announced it would remove videos that spread misinformation about all vaccines, and would ban the accounts of anti-vax activists; it had already banned content with false claims about Covid vaccines last year. Facebook did the same in February this year, though a quick search reveals misinformation is still easy to find (one post I found within minutes claimed 80% of vaccinated women had miscarriages). On TikTok, “unvaxxed” content racks up hundreds of thousands of views. Last month, NewsGuard, an organisation that rates the credibility of news organisations and monitors misinformation, found Covid conspiracy theories were being viewed by millions on TikTok, and, in its research, children under 13 – the lower age limit – were able to access the app.
Continue reading...After months of home schooling, more and more children are ditching their tech and heading outdoors
After more than a year of lockdowns, with limited access to nature, Magdalena Begh was delighted when her six-year-old daughter came home from forest school and informed her she had found three rat skeletons. One of them, Alia told her, was “pretty fresh”. “These little observations are very crucial to their learning – it’s amazing,” says Begh.
Since Alia and her sister Hana, nine, started going to the Urban Outdoors Adventures in Nature after-school club in north London in June, they have used clay, learned about insects and made campfires, marmalade and bows and arrows.
Continue reading...Caitlin Shorricks’s design for a special vest to protect her daughter during cancer treatment is now helping families across the country
Caitlin Shorricks will never forget the agony of seeing her three-month-old baby, Theía, being treated for cancer last year. She was scared to pick up her daughter for fear of accidentally pulling out the tube running into her main jugular vein: “I was totally terrified. If I wanted to hold her, I had to call a nurse to help.”
Determined to find a safe way to cuddle her little girl, she teamed up with her aunt Eva Newberry, who used to be a dressmaker, to create a garment for the baby that would keep the line safely tucked away in a pocket. They called it a “Choob Toob’”.
Continue reading...As a doctor, I believe turning away from desperately ill kids – be they in Palestine or elsewhere – is a far greater crime
I have never walked away from a fight involving the wellbeing of children. I have never abandoned the right for Palestinian health workers to train in Israel for the benefit of those same children.
Why is this something I need to speak about publicly now?
Continue reading...‘Dad dos’, or ‘Dadchelor parties’ – one last blow out for a father-to-be – are on the up. Are they just an excuse for a bender, or a crucial celebration for the modern, hands-on father?
‘Take a moment to say goodbye to your old life.” This is what Kit Harington said earlier this year, when asked what advice he’d give to fellow new parents. The actor, best known as the angst-ridden bastard prince Jon Snow in the fantasy series Game of Thrones, regretted not having held a proper celebration before the birth of his son in January.
Harington said he would have liked to mark the occasion “with a kind of stag”. “You’re so prepped about gearing up for being a parent that you forget. And then it’s too late. It’s gone.” Yet it’s the kind of sob story that’s likely to invite eye-rolls from mothers, for whom this approach to having a baby is not a matter of negotiation.
Continue reading...Ex-employee tells UK MPs Mark Zuckerberg ‘has unilateral control over 3bn people’ due to his position
Mark Zuckerberg “has unilateral control over 3 billion people” due to his unassailable position at the top of Facebook, the whistleblower Frances Haugen told MPs as she called for urgent external regulation to rein in the tech company’s management and reduce the harm being done to society.
Haugen, a former Facebook employee who released tens of thousands of damaging documents about its inner workings, travelled to London from the US for a parliamentary hearing and gave qualified backing to UK government proposals to regulate social media platforms and make them take some responsibility for content on their sites.
Continue reading...Whistleblower and critic of Mark Zuckerberg will give evidence to MPs scrutinising online safety bill
The Facebook whistleblower is to give evidence to MPs and peers scrutinising the online safety bill, amid calls for a toughening up of the landmark legislation.
Frances Haugen has triggered a deep crisis at Mark Zuckerberg’s social media empire after she released tens of thousands of internal documents detailing the company’s failure to keep its users safe from harmful content. On Monday Haugen, 37, will testify in person at the joint committee scrutinising the draft online safety bill, a piece of legislation that places a duty of care on social media companies to protect users – with the threat of substantial fines if they fail to do so.
In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org.
Continue reading...Government’s chief medical adviser makes prediction after FDA review panel finds that benefits for group outweighs risks
Vaccines to protect children ages five to 11 from Covid-19 will be available in the US in early to mid-November, Dr Anthony Fauci, the government’s chief medical adviser, predicted on Sunday.
A review panel of the US food and drug administration (FDA) found last week that the benefits of Pfizer-BioNTech shots for the younger age group outweighed the risks, setting up an advisory meeting on Tuesday of outside FDA experts who are expected to recommend emergency use authorization.
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