The Manifesto Club has long criticised ‘no touch’ policies for children. Some primary schools ban teachers from putting an arm around a child to comfort them, or ban putting on sunscreen. (The NUT only allows application of sunscreen after a ‘suitable risk assessment’.) Other schools ban children from touching each other, or tell them to ask permission before touching. Some schools have instituted a ‘school hug’ (which is carried out sideways) and a ‘school hand-hold’ (where the child holds the teacher’s lower arm).
But while touch by caring adults and peers is subject to suspicion and regulation, the police apparently can carry out intimate body searches with impunity.
While the touch of the citizen is seen as dangerous, the police searching of children – the most hostile, intrusive and humiliating touch – is seen as necessary and key to public safety.
We have been following StopWatch’s excellent work on the searching and strip searching of children. They have highlighted the case of Child Q, a 15-year-old black schoolgirl who was taken out of an exam and subjected to a strip search on school premises. Her intimate parts were exposed and she was made to take off her sanitary towel. No drugs were found.
A recent StopWatch newsletter reported that at least 317 under-10s were stopped and searched in 2023, disproportionately black or Asian youngsters (81% of these searches involved no further action). In total over 107,763 children were subjected to stop and search in 2023.
Strip searches of children are terrifyingly high. 3,122 strip searches were carried out on children in the year up to March 2023 (more than 60 children a week). A report by the Children’s Commissioner found that the police had strip searched children as young as 8, including in amusement parks and takeaway outlets.
After the child Q scandal, the Home Office is reviewing its policy on strip searching children (to which StopWatch has responded here), but these changes seem to be mainly about allowing children to choose where they are strip searched, and which adults are present.
In truth, the current narrative has things upside down. It is the police search that is the violation: it treats the child as a suspect, their body as a receptacle of dangerous items. Child Q says that since the search she ‘can’t go a single day without wanting to scream, shout, cry or just give up‘. One testimony described strip searching as ‘state-sanctioned sexual assault’.
Meanwhile, touch from caring adults – to comfort or guide a child – is essential to their welfare. Everyday touch (especially with young children) integrates them into the world, aids their development, and makes them feel safe and cared for.
StopWatch argues that there should be no police strip searching of children. This is absolutely right. The true child abuse is not hugs in primary schools but the intimate searching of children by the state.