Preventing Safeguarding: the Prevent strategy and children’s rights
Preventing Safeguarding finds that, despite being sold as a way of safeguarding children, the Prevent strategy puts policing priorities above their rights and welfare.
Today we launch the first of a series of publications that look at the threats to children’s rights and welfare posed by counter-terrorism measures in the UK. This publication focuses on the Prevent strategy; the UK’s strategy for the prevention of atrocities. CRIN’s report comes ahead of the publication of the Government’s ‘Independent Review of Prevent’, which is expected to disregard widespread concerns from affected communities, and instead recommend an extension of the controversial programme.
Prevent is the part of the UK’s counter-terrorism strategy aimed at preventing individuals “becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism.” Although Prevent has existed in some form since 2003, its reach was significantly expanded in 2015 by the introduction of a legal duty on public services - such as education and healthcare - to consider the need “to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism.” The programme has faced widespread criticism for discriminating against Muslims, targeting legal political views and religious expression, and eroding trust in public services. Children are disproportionately impacted by the policy, making up nearly half of all referrals (despite making up around a fifth of the UK population). An average of 3,000 children are formally referred to the programme every year.
The independent review
Over three years ago, the UK Government promised an ‘Independent Review’ of the policy, but this has been beset by issues, missing three deadlines. In response to the appointment of an individual with a record of Islamophobic views as Reviewer, many civil society groups - including CRIN - have boycotted the Review, due to concerns that it will not be impartial and will not address longstanding, well-evidenced criticisms of Prevent.
Ahead of the Review’s publication, civil society organisations have been setting out their own case on Prevent, and organising around calls to repeal the policy. Prevent Watch have carried out an alternative, community-led People’s Review of Prevent. And organisations critical of the policy (including CRIN) have come together in a coalition, A Community Counter to Prevent. To add to these voices, today we launch a report which assesses the impact of Prevent on children’s rights and welfare, and finds it to be failing.
A programme that puts surveillance and policing over children’s welfare
Preventing Safeguarding finds that, despite being sold as a way of safeguarding children, the Prevent strategy puts policing priorities above their rights and welfare. We found that Prevent:
Violates children’s fundamental rights:
Prevent’s monitoring of children’s lawful behaviour for signs of ‘extremism’ and ‘radicalisation’ interferes with their rights to privacy and to freedom of expression, religion and assembly, and there is no adequate evidence that this approach is necessary or effective. The policy disproportionately targets Muslim children, children of Asian ethnicity, and children with mental health problems, infringing their right to non-discrimination. For example, while the Home Office has refused to publish equalities data for recent years, data from 2014-16 shows that 39% of children referred to Prevent were Muslim and 38% were ethnically Asian; these collectives representing only 5% and 6% of the UK’s population respectively.
It is clear from this report that children's fundamental rights are being trampled on.
~ Diane Abbott MP
Fails to safeguard children:
The strategy mixes the language of safeguarding with policing and national security objectives, frequently overriding children’s welfare and best interests. For example, the programme draws children who are not accused of committing any offence into contact with police unnecessarily.
“Prevent aims to identify individual children ‘at risk’ on the basis of their views and activities, rather than seeking to address the underlying conditions conducive to children’s exploitation by armed groups.”
~ Excerpt from the report
Undermines trust in public services:
The strategy conflicts with the purposes and functions of essential public services, such as education, healthcare, and social services which children have a right to. It fosters mistrust, complicating the duty of professionals such as teachers, social workers or health workers to support children and safeguard them adequately.
Entails pervasive surveillance without proper data protection:
There is a persistent lack of transparency regarding the kinds of children’s data collected under Prevent, who holds it, with whom it is shared, and the period of its retention. It is therefore difficult for children referred to Prevent to understand and challenge the use of their personal information, and for children’s rights and digital privacy advocates to scrutinise Prevent data practices and campaign for change.
“Prevent might be branded as safeguarding, but in reality it is surveillance and policing. We need a new prevention strategy based on genuinely protecting children and putting their welfare first.”
~ Leo Ratledge, Legal & Policy Director at CRIN
Now is the time to speak up and make sure children’s rights are protected
We hope that the report will encourage policymakers to take steps towards revoking Prevent and introducing prevention policies which truly centre children’s safeguarding and avoid policing and securitisation. We also hope that the children’s rights case set out in the report will be a useful resource for all those holding the Government to account on the Prevent and working towards methods of keeping people safe that don’t perpetuate human rights abuses.
This report is part of CRIN’s Counter-terrorism work looking at how state measures dramatically impact children and young people.
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