Category Archives: Children

War is lead cause behind huge drop in global vaccinations, UN warns

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Vaccine misinformation has added to crisis of collapsed healthcare and poor nutrition, Unicef and WHO report

Conflicts have hampered efforts to vaccinate children across the world, health leaders have warned, as new figures showed about 14.5 million children had not received a single immunisation dose.

More than half of the children live in countries where armed conflicts or other humanitarian crises had created fragile and vulnerable situations, according to data from the UN children’s agency, Unicef, and the World Health Organization.

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Ampleforth inquiry finds alleged serious abuse against pupils in last 10 years

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Allegations about monks and staff at North Yorkshire private school were shared with Charity Commission

An inquiry into the running of a prestigious private school said it uncovered a string of “serious abuse allegations” committed against pupils by monks and staff within the last decade.

The Charity Commission’s report found “significant weaknesses” in the safeguarding, governance and management of the two trusts responsible for running Ampleforth College, a Catholic private school in North Yorkshire founded more than 200 years ago by Benedictine monks and Ampleforth Abbey.

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Lucrative building contracts for Exclusive Brethren schools awarded to businesses run by church members

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Donations to school building funds are tax deductible, with Brethren-owned businesses across three states the beneficiaries

Schools set up by the Exclusive Brethren sect have spent millions of dollars with businesses owned by church members on major building projects, including to a company majority-owned by the powerful Hales family, a Guardian Australia investigation has found.

The Brethren’s OneSchool Global (OSG) schools are registered charities in Australia and exempt from income tax. The schools also have building funds endorsed for deductible gift recipient status.

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One-year-old child survives two days on side of busy highway in Louisiana

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Truck driver rescued baby near where the child’s four-year-old brother was found dead; the mother is now in custody

A Texas truck driver is being praised for rescuing a one-year-old boy who was seen crawling along a busy highway after surviving on his own for two days amid weather from Hurricane Beryl.

Reginald Walton, a driver for DHL Supply Chain, spotted the infant near a section of Interstate 10 in Calcasieu parish, Louisiana, near the state’s south-western border.

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Pakistani breast milk bank closes after Islamic clerics withdraw approval

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Doctors deplore decision and point to country’s high neonatal mortality rate as bank, which opened in June, forced to close without taking a single deposit

When he heard a hospital in Karachi was setting up a milk bank for babies, the news was a “huge relief” to Mohammad Munawwar.

With his wife very sick and their premature son Ayan in hospital, the 52-year-old father had had to collect milk five or six times a day from different female relatives who were breastfeeding their own babies.

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Babbling scouse youngster shows babies can have accents, say scientists

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Newborns are tuned in to the ups and downs of speech, and even a cry mimics language heard while in the womb

The upward intonation, the guttural “ck” and even the cheeky comeback to win the argument: at just 19 months old, baby Orla has mastered the crucial elements of speaking like a scouser.

Impressively, the toddler who featured in a viral video this week appears to have done so without the need for actual words.

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‘A lot of stereotypes to break’: Children’s Inquiry musical explores life in care in Britain

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Children’s experiences form basis of play that weaves 150 years of care system history into narrative

When theatre-makers Matt Woodhead and Helen Monks gathered with a small group of children in a theatre in Essex five years ago, the plan was simple: discuss the care system.

Woodhead and Monks are co-directors of Lung Theatre, a company that has made a name for itself by tackling weighty subjects, such as the Chilcot inquiry, housing evictions and, most recently, the spate of self-inflicted deaths at Woodhill HMP, that are often investigative verbatim pieces.

The Children’s Inquiry runs 8 July to 3 August at the Southwark Playhouse

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Photos of Australian children used in dataset to train AI, human rights group says

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Human Rights Watch found links to 190 photos of kids that were scraped off internet without families’ consent

Photos of Australian children have been included in the dataset used by several AI image-generating tools without the knowledge or consent of them or their families, research by Human Rights Watch (HRW) has found.

An analysis of less than 0.0001% of the 5.85bn images contained in the Laion-5B dataset, used by services such as Stable Diffusion creator Stability AI and Midjourney, found 190 photos of Australian children scraped from the internet.

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Low wages under Tories have pushed 900,000 UK children into poverty, report finds

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TUC says party has overseen ‘huge rise’ in poverty, as Resolution Foundation says average wages just £16 a week higher in real terms than in 2010

The crisis of poverty that has taken root in the UK over the past 14 years has been laid bare in two reports that reveal the devastating effects low wages and price increases on the lives of 900,000 children.

With both main parties proposing tough welfare spending plans, reports have highlighted the link between rising child poverty and slow wage growth under five Conservative governments since 2010 – the slowest growth since the second world war.

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UK children shorter, fatter and sicker amid poor diet and poverty, report finds

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Food Foundation says height of five-year-olds falling, child obesity up by a third and type 2 diabetes by a fifth

Children across the UK are getting shorter, fatter and sicker amid an epidemic of poor diets, food insecurity and poverty, according to a report warning that millions are facing a “timebomb” of avoidable health conditions.

The average height of five-year-olds is falling, obesity levels have increased by almost a third and the number of young people being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes has risen by more than a fifth, the report by the Food Foundation said.

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Campaigners hope Labour will scrap two-child benefit cap once in No 10

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Manifesto has no pledge to end rule Angela Rayner called ‘inhumane’ but there have been hints at more to come

Senior Labour figures have been crystal clear in the past about the two-child benefit limit, with Angela Rayner saying it was “obscene and inhumane” and Jonathan Ashworth calling it “heinous”.

Yet, as expected, Keir Starmer’s safety-first manifesto lacked any promise to reverse it, and shadow ministers have been wheeled out to underline the need to make “tough choices” and avoid unfunded promises. Rayner has said Labour has to “prioritise”.

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Starmer faces further calls for Labour to axe two-child benefit cap

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IFS research shows 670,000 more children will be hit by policy by end of next parliament if limit stays in place

Keir Starmer is facing renewed pressure to scrap the two-child benefit limit, as research reveals that 250,000 more children will be hit by the policy over the next year alone.

Labour’s manifesto for government, published last week, included the promise of an “ambitious strategy to reduce child poverty”, but no mention of the two-child limit.

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Places in council-run children’s homes in England fall by third as private firms take over

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Increased reliance on private provision is pushing children hundreds of miles away from friends and family

The number of places in council-run children’s homes in England has fallen by a third since 2012 – at the same time as places in privately run profit-making children’s homes have soared, according to an Observer analysis of government data.

The dramatic fall in council-run children’s homes, and local authorities’ increasing reliance on privately run provision, have helped drive a rise in children being housed hundreds of miles from their families, with private provision clustering in cheaper parts of the country.

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Children trapped in war zones because of UK refusal to ease refugee visa rules

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‘Abject failure’ of family reunion scheme to provide legal route is leaving children at risk of trafficking or even death

Children are being trapped in war zones as a result of “impossible” bureaucratic requirements imposed on one of the few legal routes for asylum seekers, a charity has found.

The government has championed family reunion processes as a means for refugees to safely reunite with loved ones in Britain, but according to a new report by Ramfel, a charity that supports vulnerable migrants, the scheme is “not fit for purpose” and applicants have been abandoned, leaving them at risk of trafficking or even death.

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‘Unprecedented scale’ of violations against children in Gaza, West Bank and Israel, UN report says

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More ‘grave violations’ committed in occupied territories and Israel than anywhere else in world, report says

More grave violations against children were committed in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel than anywhere else in the world last year, according to a UN report due to be published this week.

The report on children and armed conflict, which has been seen by the Guardian, verified more cases of war crimes against children in the occupied territories and Israel than anywhere else, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar, Somalia, Nigeria and Sudan.

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Revealed: drug cartels force migrant children to work as foot soldiers in Europe’s booming cocaine trade

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Exclusive: Guardian investigation shows white powder trail linking hundreds of vulnerable African minors with ruthless gangs

Hundreds of unaccompanied child migrants across Europe are being forced to work as soldiers for increasingly powerful drug cartels to meet the continent’s soaring appetite for cocaine, a Guardian investigation has found.

EU police forces have warned of industrial-scale exploitation of African children by cocaine networks operating in western Europe in cities including Paris and Brussels as they seek to expand Europe’s £10bn cocaine market.

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Labour urged to confirm how it will find staff for 100,000 new childcare places

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Party’s proposals involve about £140m to refurbish school classrooms, but nothing extra to increase staffing

Labour has been accused of leaving a gap in its childcare plans after the party confirmed its promise to offer 100,000 new childcare places would not involve extra funding to recruit more staff.

Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, appeared at a primary school in Nuneaton on Monday alongside the shadow education secretary to publicise the party’s pledge to expand childcare places through primary schools.

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Labour pledges to create more than 100,000 new nursery places

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Exclusive: Party plans to set up more than 3,300 nurseries in existing primary schools in England for children from nine months old

Labour has pledged to create more than 100,000 new nursery places for children from nine months old, helping to both drive up standards and meet demand, as a key manifesto offer for working parents.

The party plans to set up more than 3,300 new nurseries in existing primary schools in England to support a major expansion of childcare.

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New York passes laws protecting kids from addictive social media content

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Legislation will limit children’s exposure to computer algorithmic social media feeds and protect their privacy

New York state took novel legislative steps on Friday to limit children’s exposure to computer algorithmic social media feeds, passing two laws to protect children from addictive social media content and to protect their privacy.

The Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation (Safe) for Kids Act requires social media companies to restrict addictive feeds on their platforms for users under 18 unless parental consent is granted, and prohibits companies from sending notifications regarding addictive feeds to minors from 12.00am to 6.00am.

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Eight in 10 primary teachers in England spending own money to help pupils

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Increasing numbers of children hungry and lack adequate clothing, with two-thirds of secondary teachers also supporting pupils

Eight in 10 primary schoolteachers in England are spending their own money to buy items for pupils who are increasingly arriving at school hungry and without adequate clothing, according to new research.

Almost a third (31%) of those who took part in the survey said they were seeing more hungry children in class, with 40% reporting an increase in pupils coming in without proper uniform or a warm winter coat, research by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) found.

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