The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) has released the advanced edited version of their report into children’s right to be safe in education, including a paragraph relating to Prevent in schools that drew from a submission sent by Prevent Watch to the Special Rapporteur on safety in education Farida Shaheed earlier this year.
You can find Prevent Watch’s submission here under CSOs. Click on our name and download our submission.
The report has been submitted to the Human Rights Council pursuant to the Council resolutions 8/4 and 53/7, during the 59th session of the UNHRC held between 16 June and 11 July 2025 under Agenda Item 3: Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development.
In it, the Special Rapporteur addresses the “right to be safe in education”, as part of children’s right to education.
Prevent Watch made a submission the report, which led to a caution on Prevent in schools in paragraph 75:
75. Counter-terrorism measures in schools can be problematic, too. For example, the Committee on the Rights of the Child recommended that the United Kingdom immediately end the targeting of specific groups of children, particularly children of Muslim or Asian descent, through the Prevent strategy, and institute mandatory teacher training. As a matter of principle, requiring educators to identify signs of radicalization based on vague and contested indicators, and the questioning of children by counter-terrorism officers at school without the presence of an adult of a guardian, including young children, does not maintain a proper balance between the fight against terrorism and children’s rights, including the right to a safe education.
Read the full advanced draft report.
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