Council of Europe condemns use of pain-inducing restraint on children
Neil Puffett
Tuesday, March 24, 2020
The use of pain-inducing restraint techniques on children in secure settings is in violation of international commitments made by the UK government, the Council of Europe has warned.
A report by the European Committee of Social Rights, which monitors compliance to the Council of Europe's social charter treaty, of which the UK is a signatory, highlights a number of areas where standards have been breached, including the issue of restraint.
Current government guidance on the use of restraint in young offender institutions, Minimising and Managing Physical Restraint, permits the use of restraint techniques that deliberately inflict pain on children.
These techniques are supposed to be a last resort, in order to protect the child or other people from “an immediate risk of serious physical harm”.
They are sometimes called “pain distraction techniques”, the theory being that a momentary sharp pain will be sufficiently unpleasant to cause the child to desist from physical resistance and comply with instructions.
Youth Justice Board statistics show that pain was deliberately inflicted around 260 times in the year ending March 2018, up from around 110 in the year ending March 2017.
The European Committee of Social Rights' report noted that the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse has previously called for pain-inducing restraint to be made illegal, arguing that it should be viewed as a form of child abuse.
It added that the United Nations Committee Against Torture, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture, and the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, have all stated their opposition to pain-inducing restraint.
"The committee concludes that the situation [regarding pain-inducing restraint] is not in conformity with Article 17 [of the social charter] as regards the treatment of children in detention," the report states.
MPs and Lords have previously called for a ban on the use of pain-inducing techniques on young people in custody.
In July last year the government said it was waiting for the completion of a Ministry of Justice review on the matter, which began in November 2018, before making a decision on future policy.
Carolyne Willow, director of children's rights charity Article 39, said: “Once more the UK has been found to be violating children’s fundamental rights by authorising and training up prison officers to deliberately inflict severe pain on children.
"Over a year ago, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse concluded pain-inducing restraint is a form of child abuse which must be prohibited by law. Ministers have had ample time to bring an end to this state-authorised mistreatment but they have dragged their heels and are now having to act on this latest finding in the middle of a global pandemic.
"It’s downright shameful that successive recommendations from human rights bodies and the UK’s largest public inquiry into child abuse have been ignored.”
The Ministry of Justice has been contacted for comment.
