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Five years ago, the United Kingdom public was \u201cshocked\u201d to learn the story of child Q, a 15-year-old Black girl in Hackney. Child Q was at school. She was \u201csuspected\u201d of having cannabis. The police were called. The police strip-searched the child. The child was menstruating. Of course, the police found no contraband: \u201cA council report found that racism had been a likely factor in her treatment.<\/a>\u201d Child Q said<\/a>, \u201cSomeone walked into the school, where I was supposed to feel safe, took me away from the people who were supposed to protect me and stripped me naked, while on my period. I can\u2019t go a single day without wanting to scream, shout, cry or just give up. I don\u2019t know if I\u2019m going to feel normal again. But I do know this can\u2019t happen to anyone else, ever again.\u201d Today, Dame Rachel De Souza, the UK\u2019s Children\u2019s Commissioner<\/a>, released a report, \u201cPolice powers and children \u2013 strip searching and use of force<\/a>.\u201d In the intervening five years, many children have been strip-searched. A disproportionate number of those children are Black.<\/p>\n On one hand, the number of reported strip-searches has dropped. That\u2019s it for \u201cgood news\u201d. On the other hand, \u201cChildren of Black ethnicity are more likely to be strip searched than children of other ethnicities \u2026. Between July 2023 and June 2024, Black children were almost 8 times more likely to be strip searched than White children and around 5 times more likely than Asian children, meaning there has been no improvement to disproportionate strip searching of Black children since the last data collection period. Over a quarter (27%) of strip searches between July 2023 and June 2024 were of a child aged 15 years old or younger \u2026. There are ethnic disparities in both the use of force and the contextual factors surrounding the use of force. Black children are over-represented in use of force incidents and higher proportions of Black children have their size, gender, or build listed as a contextual factor in the use of force report than their Asian, White and Mixed ethnicity counterparts.\u201d<\/p>\n The report finds this State violence committed on the bodies, souls, minds and lives of Black children results from \u201cadultification bias\u201d: \u201cThe disproportionate use of force against Black children can be attributed to adultification bias where racialised children, particularly Black children, are perceived as older, more dangerous, and more guilty than their White peers. This bias shifts the police’s focus away from a child\u2019s actual vulnerability and children are more likely to be treated with suspicion than raising safeguarding concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n The police \u201csaw\u201d adults where there were children. Why? Because they were trained to. Trained as police officers, trained as adults, trained as people living in a racist society.<\/p>\n The report concludes, \u201cThe racial disproportionality in strip searching Black children has seen no signs of improvement.\u201d Finally, the report notes that \u201cthe vast majority of children are still being searched for drugs, rather than weapons, where the risk of immediate harm is less clear.\u201d<\/p>\n We live in an age in which children are disposed of like so much worthless garbage, largely because of the color of their skin. Remember the slaughter of 168 schoolgirls caused by the U.S. bombing of Shajareh Tayyebeh school<\/a> in Iran? That was February 28,2026, less than eight weeks ago. Outside of the schoolgirls\u2019 families and communities, who\u2019s talking about that today? Where is the horror? What was \u201cthe risk of immediate harm\u201d? How has it become so easy for adults to forget our responsibility to protect children from harm?<\/p>\n In June 2025, an Egyptian mother and her five children were arrested and thrown into Dilley detention center, in Texas. Her 18-year-old daughter, Habiba El-Gamal, wrote a letter which concluded, \u201cThis place broke something in us. Something that I don\u2019t know if we will ever be able to fix<\/a>.\u201d That letter was read to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Wednesday, March 11, 2026. As of yesterday, the El-Gamal family were still held at Dilley<\/a>.<\/p>\n Something has been broken, something in us, something that I don\u2019t know if we will ever be able to fix. We have become the risk of immediate harm. Can we still say we do know this can\u2019t happen to anyone else, ever again?<\/span><\/p>\n (By Dan Moshenberg)<\/p>\n