Your rights - general
Rules and punishments must always be fair.
You never have to put up with bad treatment just because you are a child. In fact, the law gives you extra protection because you are a child.
So, let’s start with a law passed by our Parliament in London in 1998. This is called the Human Rights Act. It gives rights to children and adults. Three of the rights are very relevant to rules and punishments:
You have the right to respect for your private life. This is about your mind and your body being safe. This protection comes from Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which is one of the rights protected by our Human Rights Act. Punishments that harm children’s bodies or minds could be violating this right. This would make them unlawful. A recent example of this is a boy who was kept in his prison cell for over 100 days with hardly any time outside. A judge said his Article 8 right to protection had been breached.
You also have the right to protection from inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment. This protection from very cruel treatment comes from Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Judges in an important case 10 years ago said staff deliberately causing pain during restraint just to make children follow orders would be violating this Article 3 right. Hopefully you also know that staff can never hit you or abuse you in any way, even if you have done something wrong.
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