Media Information
From: Action on Rights for Children (ARCH)
FOR IMMEDIATE USE - 4 March 2004
RIGHTS GROUP SLAMS CHILDREN'S BILL AS "AN OPEN INVITATION TO CHILD ABUSERS"
Action on Rights for Children (ARCH),
the UK-wide network of parents and
young people committed to upholding the UN Convention on the Rights of the
Child,
has roundly condemned the Children's Bill published today (Thursday) as being
"profoundly dangerous and anti-children".
Asserting that measures outlined within it offer "an open invitation to child
abusers", the group has challenged the government to provide a cast-iron
guarantee that paedophiles will not be able to exploit the myriad of sensitive
personal information that is to be held on databases and routinely shared by an
unknown number of 'professional' users from a wide range of agencies.
Dismissing the government's claims that the Bill will safeguard vulnerable
children, and condemning the covert surveillance of all children as "an
outrageous intrusion into family life", ARCH spokesperson Terri Dowty said:
"As concerned and responsible parents, we deplore the government's plans to
effectively endanger our children by entering their personal details on a
database to which countless unknown individuals will be allowed access.
"We only have to look at the spate of recent prosecutions of 'caring'
professionals who have abused children - teachers, police officers, social
workers
and others - to seriously question the government's judgement in promoting such
an ill-conceived and dangerous scheme.
"Our members are outraged by the suggestion that our children should all be
subject to surveillance by strangers, who, unlike parents, may not have their
best interests at heart. It is an unacceptable intrusion into the lives of
families who are responsible for bringing up their children and for ensuring
their
safety is not compromised.
"Hacking a database is relatively straightforward, so how do they propose to
keep our children's details secure and out of the hands of paedophiles?
Besides, we have rarely seen a government-inspired database that functions
properly,
so what will happen to children who are genuinely at risk when this one
malfunctions or collapses, as it inevitably will?
"We want to see a full risk assessment carried out on this proposed database,
as we believe it will endanger children rather than protect them. The
accuracy and security of data can never be guaranteed, and the whole concept
conflicts with existing data protection legislation and Article 8 of the
European
Convention on Human Rights.
"The case of Victoria Climbie, who died despite being known to numerous
'protection' agencies, is a tragic example of abject failure on the part of
professionals who did nothing to intervene in circumstances where a child was
known
to be at serious risk. How, therefore, can the surveillance of the entire child
population - with its related resource implications for child welfare
agencies - be justified, when that small minority of children who genuinely are
at
serious risk continue to fall through the safety net?
"ARCH challenges the government to enter into a public debate on this issue.
Our children's safety must not be jeopardised by a scheme which denies them
their fundamental right to privacy and allows their personal details to be
accessed and scrutinised by any number of 'professional' strangers."
ENDS
Note to Editors:
For details of ARCH, see www.arch-ed.org
ARCH is a network of families throughout the UK. The following are
spokespeople on the Children Bill:
{26/03/04 names now deleted, please contact us via our
press link}