Weeks after the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child criticised the "general climate of intolerance and negative public attitudes towards children" in the UK, Mark Brown reports that Vue has started "over-18 only" screenings in 58 of its 64 cinemas (Relief for grumps: the child-free cinema, November 7).
Brown states: "We've all been there. You're in the cinema and all around are children eating nachos, enjoying the movie and being cheerily sociable rather than immovably silent."
He is right: we have all been there. Think back to when you were a child and the sheer delight of entering a cinema and having money left over to buy sweets or popcorn. Apparently "the adults-only cinema will be the equivalent of the quiet carriages on trains with a dedicated member of staff on hand to try to shush those making a noise". Yet children are not the only ones who slurp, crunch, cough, sniff, sneeze, laugh, cry or whisper.
Vue is running an online vote to select which films - including those classified PG and 12A - should be given adults-only screenings. The company's chief operations officer, Steve Knibbs, seeks to justify the move: "It came about because audiences, as they've got older, have been asking for it." Why are adults demanding this segregation? And who are they? It's difficult to imagine parents wanting to exclude children in this way.
We now have adults-only hotels and gated communities where children are excluded altogether or where their outdoor play is tightly controlled. Signs on shop doorways restricting children's access are commonplace, and there are an estimated 3,500 Mosquito devices, ultrasonic "teenage deterrents" emitting a high-pitched sound that causes discomfort to young people, in use across the country. The use of these devices is a clear form of ageism - they'd be banned if targeted on the general population.
Add to this the disproportionate use of stop-and-search and antisocial behaviour orders on the young, the disgracefully high number of incarcerated children, and the fact that children are the only people who can be legally hit in the UK, and it's clear why the UN was so critical.
Our alliance's dossier of age discrimination includes children being refused help from health and social services and the emergency services, and encountering prejudice from the police when they report crimes. Rules restrict their access to golf and chess clubs, as well as council-run allotments. Young people have been refused entry to restaurants and gyms, and frequently complain of disrespect from bus drivers. None of this treatment would be lawful were it imposed on individuals because of their gender or race.
As Joan Bakewell wrote this week (Ageism, pensions and the end of high heels - it's time I spoke up, November 10), the government is drafting "a major equality bill [and] the outlawing of ageism is a central part of this". Sadly, ministers have so far opted to exclude under-18s from new protection from age discrimination, giving the green light to more prejudice and social segregation.
• Carolyne Willow is the national coordinator of the Children's Rights Alliance for England cwillow@crae.org.uk
