British youth in crisis
‘Unhappy, unloved and out of control’ is the scathing analysis of Britain’s young people offered by the well-known American magazine, TIME. In an extensive article entitled ‘Britain’s Mean Streets’ the magazine highlights how British young people are caught up in a crisis of binge drinking, underage sex, drug abuse and violence.
‘British youngsters drink their Continental European counterparts under the table’, it observes, while ‘English girls are the most sexually active in Europe’. British teens are also more likely to try drugs or start smoking young, the article, reported by The Christian Institute, claims.
‘Small wonder, then’, remarks author Catherine Mayer, ‘that a 2007 UNICEF study of child wellbeing in twenty-one industrialised countries places Britain firmly at the bottom of the table’.
Meanwhile, the article says, the threat of violence from young people at night is causing people to stay in. ‘Britons are frightened of their own young’, it states. Camila Batmanghelidjh, founder of a charity working with London’s poorest young people, says: ‘If I was sitting in government, I’d be really worried – not about terrorist bombs, but about this’.
