Category Archives: Children

‘So old he was losing his hair’: survivors urge MPs to end scandal of UK’s child brides

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A new bill could close loophole allowing under-18s to marry in England and Wales, as charities warn Covid has exacerbated hidden child marriage

When Payzee Mahmod was married at 16 to a man nearly twice her age she didn’t understand the words spoken during the Islamic ceremony – and nobody thought to translate them for her.

The teenager, who loved fashion and pop music, was preparing to start college. “I had just finished school and the idea of not wearing a uniform was exciting to me,” she remembers. “Instead I found myself trussed up in a wedding dress, with elaborate jewellery, feeling like a sale item at an auction.”

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Ex-BBC presenter and pastor jailed for 10 years for prolific sexual abuse

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Benjamin Thomas pleaded guilty to 40 offences over 30 years, mainly against teenage boys

A former pastor and BBC television presenter has been jailed for 10 years and four months after he admitted abusing boys and men over almost three decades.

Ben Thomas, 44, carried out many of his attacks while his victims were sleeping at Christian camps and conferences, Mold crown court in north Wales heard.

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‘Any focus on them is good’: can a new scheme help Delhi’s missing children?

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With 17 children missing every day, the city’s police commissioner hopes a promise of fast-track promotion will inspire officers to reunite more families

New Delhi Police Commissioner SN Srivastava was particularly troubled over the 17 children who went missing in his city every day. So he decided to light a fire in the belly of his force and came up with a new approach.

If any officer could find 50 missing children in a year their promotion would be fast-tracked. It usually takes constables at least five years to be promoted to head constable, and meeting the target would dramatically speed that up.

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A quarter of adopted UK children affected by drinking during pregnancy

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Survey by Adoption UK finds 17% of adopted children are suspected of having foetal alcohol spectrum disorder

One in four adopted children are either diagnosed with or suspected to have a range of conditions caused by drinking in pregnancy, according to a recent survey of nearly 5,000 adopters in the UK.

Among the adopters surveyed by the charity Adoption UK, 8% of children had a diagnosis, and a further 17% were suspected by their parents to have foetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD), the neurodevelopmental condition characterised by difficulty with impulse control, as well as behavioural and learning difficulties.

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Children urged to strike against lack of action on climate emergency

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Schoolchildren to protest on Friday in first such action since coronavirus pandemic struck

Schoolchildren around the world are being urged to go on strike to protest against a lack of action on the climate crisis.

Children and their supporters are invited to take to the streets on Friday, if it is safe to do so, or to go online with their protests “in whatever way suits you best”, according to the organisers.

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Alex Winter: ‘I had extreme PTSD for many, many years. That will wreak havoc’

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He is starring in a new Bill & Ted movie and releasing a documentary about child actors. The film-maker discusses the abuse he experienced as a young performer, his close friendship with Keanu Reeves – and why he quit acting

By the age of 12, Alex Winter knew both the highs and horrors of life as a child actor. Three years into his career, he was sharing a Broadway stage with Yul Brynner in The King and I. “But at the same time,” he says, “I was dealing with really intense and prolonged abuse.

“There was The King and I – eight shows a week, happy face – feeling genuinely happy in that role. Great relationship with my mom and dad; great relationship with the co-workers around me; doing interviews, signing autographs, living this amazing … and then this nightmarish other existence.” He has not named his abuser, who he says is dead.

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Save the Children can resume funding bids following sexual abuse scandal

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Charity has made ‘significant steps’ to improve safeguarding and can now apply for government funds two years on from withdrawal

The charity Save the Children can resume bids for government funding after it withdrew from the process two years ago over a sexual misconduct scandal.

The charity, one of the largest British recipients of government funding, receiving £139m in 2017, had taken “significant steps” to improve safeguarding and now meets government standards, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office confirmed on Thursday.

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‘I had to kill so many people’: the battle to protect children in conflicts

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25,000 grave violations were committed against children in conflict in 2019, says the UN, which hopes to highlight issue with new international day

When Islamic State fighters rolled into Mosul, Iraq, they made promises.

“When they arrived they promised us salvation, a better life, but within months our schools were closed and we were living in fear, prisoners in our own city,” says Usama Salem, 11.

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School’s out in Kashmir: classes held in meadows amid closures

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Educators in the disputed region are fighting to keep pupils on track amid repeated lockdowns, curfews and internet blackouts

Asmat Jan, 15, practises her singing in a meadow, against a backdrop of Kashmir’s towering mountains. In front of her, around 50 other children squat in perfect, straight lines. A couple of adults hover nearby.

Education has gone open-air across the valley in Indian-administered Kashmir and this is one of the many makeshift community classes that have sprung up in response to the repeated closure of schools under two separate lockdowns, alongside a communication blackout in this hotly disputed territory imposed in August last year. While political restrictions have eased a little in Kashmir since India revoked the region’s special status and degree of autonomy, a brief reopening of education in February lasted only until April’s Covid-19 lockdown brought classes to yet another grinding halt.

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Fatigue and headache most common Covid symptoms in children – study

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Researchers call for age-based symptom checklists as virus presents differently in children

Fatigue, headache and fever are the most common symptoms of coronavirus in children, with few developing a cough or losing their sense of taste or smell, researchers have found, adding to calls for age-specific symptom checklists.

The NHS lists three symptoms as signs of Covid-19 in adults and children: a high temperature, a new, continuous cough, and a loss or change in the sense of smell or taste.

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Why Covid school closures are making girls marry early

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The pandemic’s impact is long-term: the UN warns that it could lead to 13 million more child marriages over a decade

Samita (not her real name) is 17 and lives in the Lamjung district of Nepal. It was never easy, even before coronavirus, for her to attend school full-time. Living in a rural community in a family with little income she was expected to do housework as well.

Samita persisted though. At the beginning of the year, the Sisters for Sisters project run by international development charity VSO was supporting her with an “older sister” mentor, who was encouraging her to keep up her education.

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Covid symptoms: diarrhoea and vomiting may be key sign of coronavirus in children – study

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Research suggests stomach trouble more predictive of virus in young people than a cough

Diarrhoea and vomiting could be an important sign of Covid-19 in children, researchers say, leading to calls for the official NHS list of symptoms to be updated.

The checklist for coronavirus in children currently includes just three symptoms: a high temperature, a new, continuous cough, and a loss or change to the sense of smell or taste. The latter was added to the list in May.

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Brexit: EU rejects UK proposal for reuniting child asylum seekers

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Warning that lack of agreement means more young people will risk lives crossing Channel

The EU has rejected a British proposal for a system to reunite children seeking asylum with their families in the UK or Europe, prompting warnings that more young people will risk their lives in dangerous Channel crossings.

The government had proposed a post-Brexit agreement to continue transfers of unaccompanied child asylum seekers to families living in either the UK or EU, although with no obligation on either side.

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‘A race against time’: the new law putting Somalia’s children at risk of marriage

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Child marriage in the country has increased during coronavirus – and now a newly-tabled bill would allow children as young as 10 to marry

Fardowsa Salat Mohamed was 15 when her cousin asked her parents for her hand in marriage. Her father did not hesitate to say yes. When Mohamed objected, her father asked her to choose between “a curse and a blessing”.

“That was not a choice for me, I was basically forced,” she says. “No girl would ever choose to be cursed by her parents so I had to accept the marriage,”

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New Zealand given ‘F for failure’ on child obesity and youth suicide in Unicef report

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‘Woeful’ result puts country in bottom 15% for overall child wellbeing which Ardern says reflects previous government’s underinvestment

Unicef says New Zealand is failing children after a new report revealed the country’s poor childhood obesity and suicide statistics have pushed it to near the very bottom on child wellbeing.

The latest Unicef Innocenti report card shows that, out of 41 developed countries in the OECD and European Union, New Zealand ranks 35th.

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Vaccine-derived polio spreads in Africa after defeat of wild virus

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Fresh cases of disease linked to oral vaccine seen in Sudan, following outbreak in Chad

A new polio outbreak in Sudan has been linked to the oral polio vaccine that uses a weakened form of the virus.

News of the outbreak comes a week after the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that wild polio had been eradicated in Africa.

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‘A form of connection’: Spoonville craze revives community spirit in Australia

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Handmade ‘villages’ of spoons that first sprouted on nature strips have brought welcome enjoyment, especially for children, amid the coronavirus

During the first wave of the coronavirus, one could barely walk a block in an Australian suburb without seeing a teddybear peeking through a window.

Aimed at brightening children’s days as the world around them became increasingly gloomy, the uplifting activity slowly died out as the pandemic dragged on.

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‘I’m going round in circles’: parents in England still undecided about return to school

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As government guidance continues to change over mask-wearing in schools, many are anxious about the risk to families

Eva Harratt, 13, would love to go to the park to meet her friends but it is forbidden because she lives in Oldham, the town in Greater Manchester facing restrictions due to a rise in Covid-19 cases. And yet, in five days, she is expected to return to her 1,370-pupil school and sit in classes of 30.

She likes school, misses her friends and wants to go back, but her mother is in the most vulnerable category because of an autoimmune disease. “Returning to school, I feel, is just not an option for me. They don’t appear to have given much thought to families with shielding members, or how that may affect them. Personally, I would prefer for things to go back to normal as soon as possible, but in the current situation, it is just not plausible for me,” says Eva.

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National Trust sacking education officers ‘will hit worst-off children’

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Volunteers accuse charity of excluding deprived and minority ethnic schoolchildren

Volunteers are accusing the National Trust of excluding deprived and minority ethnic schoolchildren from enjoying nature and visiting its properties with the planned sacking of the charity’s education officers.

The number of protests and petitions are growing over the trust’s controversial “reset” involving the proposed loss of 1,200 jobs, including its learning staff, as the charity plans to stop providing any curriculum-based content or learning activities for schools.

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‘Fear of failure’ giving UK children lowest happiness levels in Europe

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More than a third of UK 15-year-olds scored low in the annual Good Childhood Report

Children in the UK have the lowest levels of life satisfaction across Europe, with “a particularly British fear of failure” partly to blame, according to a major report into childhood happiness.

More than a third of UK 15-year-olds scored low on life satisfaction, the annual Good Childhood Report from the Children’s Society found. They also fared badly across happiness measurements including satisfaction with schools, friends and sense of purpose compared to children in other European countries.

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