Euronews reports police in London strip-searched 650 children aged 10 to 17 between 2018 and 2020. Dame Rachel de Souza, the Children's Commissioner for England, said many of the strip searches were unwarranted and conducted on children who were innocent. "In a strip search, your most intimate parts are searched," she said. "For any child, that's going to be traumatic and concerning." Most of the searches were done on Black children.
The commissioner launched her investigation following widespread outrage over the case of Child Q, a 15-year-old black schoolgirl who was strip-searched at her school in east London.
She was wrongly suspected of carrying cannabis.
The strip search prompted days of protests in Hackney after it emerged the schoolgirl was searched without another adult present and with the knowledge that she was menstruating. Her parents were not contacted.
The London Police responded to the outcry by saying it was "progressing at pace" to "ensure children subject to intrusive searches are dealt with respectfully."
