Call for Member's Views: Committee against Torture Review of the UK 2019

Date: 4th February 2019
Category: UN Convention Against Torture (CAT), Protection from abuse or neglect, Equal protection from violence, Restraint, Domestic abuse

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Together will be submitting a shadow report as part of the UN Committee against Torture 2019 Review of the UK. We want to hear from our members about their key concerns so these can be reflected in the report. 

The UN Committee's review of the UK will take place April 2019. It will assess how well the UK Government, and the devolved nations, are implementing the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. It will identify gaps in implementation, potential breaches of the Convention and make recommendations to the UK and devolved nations to address these.

Together’s report will focus on children and young people’s right to be free from torture, cruel or inhuman treatment. It will be based around a List of Issues the UN Committee published in 2016. This list of issues includes:

1. Prisons, policing and intelligence services: issues relevant to children and young people may include inappropriate placement in police detention, conditions and treatment in detention settings (including use of restraint), mental health, deaths in custody, strip searching, using children and young people as covert human intelligence sources, inadequacy of data recording.
2. Health and social care: issues relevant to children and young people may include mental health, including in custody settings.
3. Violence and abuse against women, minorities and children: issues relevant to children and young people may include FGM, gender-based bullying, sexual harassment, forced marriage, domestic abuse, restraint and seclusion in schools, and equal protection from assault.
4. Asylum and migration: issues relevant to children and young people may include supporting victims of child trafficking, age assessment and training of officials.
5. Legislative, administrative and judicial procedures: issues relevant to children and young people include the low age of criminal responsibility, the debate around equal protection from assault, justiciability of international human rights treaties and redress.

If your organisation wants to get involved, please get in touch with Maria, our Legal Research Officer, by email maria@togetherscotland.org.uk by Wednesday 27^th February 2019 with the following information:

1. Please provide a summary of up to three priority concerns relating to the List of Issues (summarised above), stating briefly what the problems are and the impact that these have on the children and young people you work with.
2. Are there specific actions that the Scottish Government or UK Government could or should take that would help to address these priority concerns?
3. If known, please provide links or titles of policy documents or evidence around your concerns.

• For more information, read our Call for Members' Views in full here.