For the second year in a row child poverty has risen. Children in poverty increased by 100,000 in 2006-7 on top of the 200,000 rise in 2005-6 (before housing costs). And that was at the height of the economic boom – the coming recession will make it worse still.

Figures for child poverty after housing costs are even worse, with 3.9 million living in relative poverty instead of the target of less than 3.3 million (relative being 60% of average earnings).

Thirty per cent of children – yes, that’s nearly one in three – live in poverty in the UK (all statistics from government website) and the figure is rising despite New Labour’s tax and credit reforms. Labour’s promise in 1997 of halving child poverty may be missed by one million.

But the government’s failings are even worse. Last month, the Children’s Commissioners for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland released a damning report to the United Nations that highlighted how legal and political attacks on young people’s rights and living conditions have intensified over the past few years.

The report highlights a “very punitive approach to misbehaviour” in the UK and that the UK has a low age of criminal responsibility (10 years compared with an EU average of 14), locking up many more children and young people than most European countries. In addition, the report exposes how severe child poverty makes the UK stand out from much of Europe, with bad health, poor education, substance abuse and teenage pregnancy.

There is a clear racial dimension to child poverty. The commissioners’ report condemns the treatment of young asylum seekers who are “consistently treated differently” and experience “serious breaches of their rights”, while a recent House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee report found that rates of poverty were twice as high among children in Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities in the UK.

Labour’s approach to youth since 1997 has been underpinned with Tory rhetoric such as “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime”, but in reality has focused on the former and not the latter. Antisocial Behaviour Orders (Asbos) have been used mainly on young people, criminalising youth for activities that under criminal law would not be offences. There’s no ‘innocent until proven guilty’ when it comes to Asbos: no trial, no jury, no case for the defence. But it’s a criminal offence to breach an Asbo – with penalties including heavy fines, and even imprisonment. The latest Home Office statistics (from 2006) show that 61 per cent of all Asbos on young people were breached. As part of the same package of legislation, dispersal orders have allowed police to ban gatherings of young people in certain places, which threaten groups of more than three young people with criminalisation.

Alarmingly, new technology has also started being used to target young people indiscriminately. The “mosquito” device projects a loud high pitched noise that can only be heard by young people in order to disperse them from an area.

Workers Power spoke to a young woman in Huddersfield who described its effect. “There is one outside Kingsgate shopping centre which is on constantly. It doesn’t hurt but it’s distressing, it’s really unpleasant and just makes you want to run away.”

In a further attack, the Labour government has cut funding for youth centres, with many having closed or been threatened with closure, and has built on many of the remaining inadequate urban green spaces in the UK. Schools have sold off playing fields to developers. The result has been that young people in Britain have far fewer places to meet and socialise –important because young people often feel the need to escape the restrictive environment of home and family.

With widespread poverty, victimisation by local government and the police, racism and a deteriorating standard of life, young people in Britain have never been more alienated from society.

Despite the government’s age discrimination laws, the minimum wage for young workers is officially lower than for over 21s. Lower pay in most workplaces and rising costs of living are forcing those who would choose to leave home to stay in unhappy family situations. School life is becoming increasingly difficult for younger teenagers who have had to put up with a huge burden of homework and examinations.

Little wonder then that the report by the Children’s Commissioners point to the fact that young people in Britain drink more alcohol and smoke more cannabis than in the rest of Europe. The report also shows that the mental health of children has deteriorated over the past 30 years, with one in 10 children between the ages of five and 16 suffering a clinically recognised mental disorder.

Young people are easy scapegoats for the cowardly Labour government. Its attacks on wages, education, social and health care are causing many social problems, and are increasing levels of poverty and crime. The media whips up panic about “chavs” and “hoodies” – this is another example of how young people are victimised for social problems caused by poverty and alienation.

But young people have shown that they can be the most energetic when it comes to fighting back. Young people led the way in organising demonstrations and walkouts against the Iraq war in 2003, and came to take a leading role in anti-capitalist struggles across Europe in early 2000-02. Today, young people have the potential to fight back against the poverty caused by the Labour Party today, and against racists like the BNP who are trying to take advantage of disillusionment to divide us against ourselves.

The trade union movement should break its silence on the issue of young people, and condemn the Labour governments attacks on youth. They should rally the support of young people for workers’ struggles against low pay, privatisation and cutbacks. They should launch a huge recruitment drive to organise young workers, fight for equalisation for the minimum wage and an end to low pay.

Young people also need their own political voice: a revolutionary working class youth movement, run by young people, for young people, which can organise in the schools, colleges and workplaces to resist the government’s attacks on the youth and link resistance to the worldwide struggle against capitalism.