Libby Brooks, journalist and author

''It sometimes feels like we've forgotten in this country that children are people too - and that small people, and not-so-small ones, deserve the same respect and attention that adults expect others to extend to them. Children's rights are poorly served in Britain. Children are the only people who can, by law, be hit. It's extraordinary that someone not old enough to buy a hamster can be tried in an adult court, or named and shamed in direct contravention of their internationally recognised human rights. But it's no use speaking for children. Children can speak for themselves.''Libby Brooks, journalist and author