Category Archives: Children

Myanmar army detaining two-year-olds as proxies for parents, witnesses tell UN

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Investigators warn in a report that ‘frequency and brutality’ of atrocities in the country are continuing to escalate

Children as young as two years old have been detained by Myanmar’s military, often as proxies for their parents, and held in prison facilities where there is systematic torture, UN investigators have warned.

The Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, which was set up to document and share evidence of abuse with national, regional and international courts, said in a report that the “frequency and brutality” of atrocities inside the country had continued to escalate, more than four years after the military seized power in a coup in February 2021.

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Starmer declines to rule out election pledge-breaking tax rises in budget after claim Treasury must fill £40bn deficit – as it happened

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Prime minister defends government’s handling of economy but will not give assurances over not raising income tax, employee NI or VAT

Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat leader, has urged Keir Starmer to call Donald Trump to encourage him to use his influence to block Israel’s plans for a “full occupation” of Gaza.

In a statement, Davey said:

[Israeli PM Benjamin] Netanyahu’s latest proposals for the occupation of all of Gaza are utterly horrifying.

If realised, they will only wreak yet more destruction on Gazans - while gravely endangering the lives of the hostages still held in Hamas’ captivity.

I see NIESR is talking today about a £41.2bn hole in the UK public finances

Two things are newsworthy:

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Verbally abused children more likely to have poor mental health as adults, study finds

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Analysis suggests long-term damage to wellbeing can be worse than for children experiencing physical abuse

Parents who ridicule, threaten or humiliate their children risk leaving them with a 64% higher chance of having poor mental health as an adult, a study has found.

The research also found physical abuse experienced among the research participants reduced over time, while verbal abuse increased.

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Funding for English youth clubs aims to keep children off smartphones

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Keir Starmer says £88m package will help tackle trend of young people becoming ‘disconnected from their communities’

Youth clubs and after-school activities in England will receive a funding injection of £88m as ministers try to get more children away from smartphones and computer screens.

The package, which Keir Starmer announced on Tuesday, is intended to give pupils access to sport, outdoor activities, art, music, debating and volunteering.

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100 Gaza children hope to be evacuated to UK for urgent medical care

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Charities urge government to move quickly after it announced scheme to help critically ill and injured children

More than 100 critically ill and injured children in Gaza hope to come to the UK as soon as possible after the government announced a scheme to provide those in severe need with NHS care.

The government announced on Sunday that it would evacuate children from Gaza to the UK for treatment under a scheme to be announced within weeks.

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Wednesday briefing: Facing the reality of Gaza’s ‘unfolding’ famine

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In today’s newsletter: As Keir Starmer announces caveated plans to recognise the Palestinian state, and UN-backed experts say the ‘worst-case scenario’ is under way, is opening the borders to allow aid in the only hope?

Good morning. Humanitarians are running out of words to describe the horrors taking place in Gaza. The small strip of land has been brutalised, with all institutions that sustain life – from hospitals to schools – either completely destroyed or barely functioning. Now, the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) warns that “the worst-case scenario of famine is now unfolding in the Gaza Strip.”

Thousands of children are malnourished and hunger-related deaths on the rise, particularly among the youngest. It is worth noting this is not a formal designation of famine in Gaza, and formal designations are incredibly rare and have only taken place a handful of times in the 21st century: in Somalia in 2011, in South Sudan in 2017 and 2020, and in Sudan in 2024.

Asia-Pacific | A powerful 8.8-magnitude earthquake has triggered a series of tsunami warnings and evacuation orders across Japan, the US and parts of the Pacific, after the shallow quake hit near Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula.

Israel-Gaza war | A group of high-profile Israeli public figures, including academics, artists and public intellectuals, has called for “crippling sanctions” to be imposed by the international community on Israel, amid mounting horror over its starvation of Gaza.

Labour | Jeremy Corbyn has accused the Labour government of “appeasing” Reform UK by “scapegoating” migrants and minorities for its own domestic policy failures, saying his new leftwing political party would take on Nigel Farage instead.

Economy | Global growth will be stronger than previously expected this year after Donald Trump scaled back his most extreme tariff threats, the International Monetary Fund said as it upgraded the economic outlook for 2025.

UK news | Five women who were abused as children by Rotherham grooming gangs were also raped by police officers when they were as young as 12 years old, they have claimed.

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Spanish teenager investigated on suspicion of creating AI-generated nude videos

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Modified images of minors appear on social media account allegedly owned by 17-year-old

Police in eastern Spain are investigating a 17-year-old boy on suspicion of using artificial intelligence to create and share fake nude images of his female schoolmates that he intended to sell online.

Guardia Civil officers in the Ribera Alta area of Valencia began investigating in December last year after a female student reported the creation of a social media account in her name that featured an AI-generated video.

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UK should act to stop children getting hooked on social media ‘dopamine loops’

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Beeban Kidron says it is not ‘nanny state’ to prevent firms investing billions on making platforms addictive from targeting under-18s

A leading online safety campaigner has urged the UK government to “detoxify the dopamine loops” of addictive social media platforms as tech companies prepare to implement significant child protection measures.

Beeban Kidron, a crossbench peer, asked the technology secretary, Peter Kyle, to use the Online Safety Act to bring forward new codes of conduct on disinformation and on tech features that can lead to children becoming addicted to online content.

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Arrests in China after more than 230 kindergarten children poisoned by lead paint in food

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Principal at school in Gansu province reportedly wanted to attract more enrolments by ‘enhancing’ the colour and look of the food served to children

Chinese authorities have arrested six people and launched disciplinary investigations into almost 30 others after more than 230 kindergarten children were poisoned by food coloured with industrial-grade lead paint

The incident, which occurred in Gansu province earlier this month, is one of China’s worst school food safety incidents and has drawn national attention. An investigative report released by the Gansu provincial party committee on Sunday found a litany of failures in safety and oversight, as well as attempts to cover up the incident, bribe people in charge and modify test results.

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Women who conceived in abusive relationships lose legal challenge over benefits ‘rape clause’

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Justice Collins Rice says it is for politicians and not courts to change rules around two-child benefit cap

Two women who conceived their eldest children while they were in violent and controlling relationships have lost a legal challenge to the rules around the two-child benefit cap.

A high court judge said the accounts of the abuse the women faced when they were “vulnerable girls barely out of childhood” were “chilling”.

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Children under seven should not drink slushies containing glycerol, says regulator

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Food Standards Agency warns that the drinks can cause decreased consciousness and low blood sugar

Children under seven should not drink slushies containing glycerol because of the serious health risks they can cause, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) has said.

Glycerol is a naturally occurring alcohol and sugar substitute that helps slushies maintain their texture by preventing liquid from freezing solid.

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Sudan’s children face growing threat of deadly infectious diseases as vaccination rates halve

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The country, beset by war, has the world’s lowest rates of vaccination, says the World Health Organization, as global immunisation drive also stalls

Children in Sudan, caught up in what aid organisations have called the world’s largest humanitarian crisis and threatened by rising levels of violence, are increasingly vulnerable to deadly infectious diseases as vaccinations in the country plummet.

In 2022, more than 90% of young children in Sudan received their routine vaccinations. But that figure has nearly halved to 48%, the lowest in the world, according to the World Health Organization.

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Nicotine pouches sold to children mimic sweets, says UK trading standards body

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Children can buy pouches legally as they are not regulated as a specific tobacco or nicotine product

Nicotine pouches are being legally sold to children and are being made appealing to them with special flavours and packaging mimicking sweets, a trading standards body has said.

In June, it became illegal for single-use vapes to be sold in England to tackle their widespread use by children. However, there is currently no legislation that restricts the age at which you can buy nicotine pouches.

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US authorities take custody of more than 20 kids as surrogate mothers claim couple misled them

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Children removed from California home of couple who were arrested in May and had said they ‘wanted a large family’

More than 20 children are in the custody of a California child-welfare agency while authorities investigate a Los Angeles-area couple and whether they misled surrogate mothers around the country.

Fifteen children were removed from the couple’s opulent home in Arcadia after an abuse allegation in May, and another six living elsewhere were also located, said Arcadia’s police lieutenant, Kollin Cieadlo. They range in age from two months to 13 years, with most between one and three.

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Children investigated over Russian and Iranian plots against UK, says police chief

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Teenagers suspected of being hired by criminals paid to carry out acts on behalf of states, it is understood

Schoolchildren have been arrested by detectives investigating Russian and Iranian plots against Britain, a police chief has said, as he warned hostile state aggression was rising and youngsters were at risk.

Commander Dominic Murphy, head of the Metropolitan police’s counter-terrorism unit, said children in their “mid teens” had been investigated. It is understood they were suspected of being hired by criminals paid to carry out acts for Russia and Iran.

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Five-year-olds in England with special educational needs 20 months behind peers – report

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Children from lower-income families also remain significantly behind their peers as impact of pandemic continues to be felt

Five-year-olds with special educational needs in England are lagging a record 20 months behind their peers, according to a report that says the country’s youngest learners face a “deepening crisis”, five years after the pandemic.

Since Covid closed schools, disrupting learning and triggering falls in attendance, there has been widespread concern about the growing attainment gap that leaves disadvantaged pupils and those with special educational needs significantly behind their peers.

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Fathers plan legal action to get smartphones banned in England’s schools

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Two fathers tell education secretary they will seek judicial review in bid for statutory ban to safeguard children

Two fathers plan to take legal action against the government in an attempt to get smartphones banned in schools in England.

Will Orr-Ewing and Pete Montgomery wrote to the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, on Friday warning that they would seek a judicial review. They argue that current guidance, which allows headteachers to decide how smartphones are used, is unlawful and unsafe for children.

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Father given £1,173 refund from nursery in England after ‘top-up’ fees investigation

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Preschool establishment asked for extra compulsory fee for ‘consumables’ – but it should have been free

A nursery has refunded a father almost £1,200 after an investigation found he had been charged mandatory “top-up” fees for hours of childcare that should have been free.

Tiago Gomes’s daughter was eligible for government-funded childcare at the Lake House day nursery and preschool in Bristol but he was told that he must pay an extra compulsory fee for “consumables”.

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Minority ethnic and deprived children more likely to die after UK intensive care admission

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Study shows such young people have higher risk of arriving at paediatric ICU severely ill and have worse outcomes

Minority ethnic children and children from deprived backgrounds across the UK are more likely to die following admission to intensive care than their white and more affluent counterparts, a study has found.

These children consistently had worse outcomes following their stay in a paediatric intensive care unit (PICU), the research by academics at Imperial College London discovered.

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Children crossing Channel from France exposed to teargas, report says

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NGO says rise in interventions has only increased danger as new data shows at least 15 children died in transit last year

Children and babies coming to the UK on small boats from northern France have been teargassed and subjected to tactics such as the discharge of rubber bullets and the slashing of dinghies with knives, according to a report.

The publication on Tuesday of We Want to Be Safe, by the French non-governmental organisation Project Play, came as the latest figures on daily crossings released by the UK government reached an all-time high of 19,982 for the first six months of the year, a 40% increase compared with the same period last year.

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