THE British Human Rights Commission (HRC) yesterday called on Westminster to take immediate action to stop paramilitary assaults on children in Northern Ireland.

Twelve Northern Irish youngsters were shot and 27 assaulted in the five years from 2009 to 2014, the HRC said in a report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).

The HRC asked the UNCRC to condemn the attacks and urge Westminster to “take immediate and effective action.” And it warned that the number of attacks may have been underreported due to fear of reprisals.

Research published late last year from Queen’s University Belfast said that more than 500 children had been shot or beaten by loyalist and republican paramilitaries over the past two decades.

During the Troubles, paramilitary groups sought to “police” their communities, dealing out violent punishment to criminals including children.

The HRC’s recommendations to Westminster and the Northern Ireland executive were to raise the age of legal responsibility from 10 to 12 and ban corporal punishment of children, including smacking.

It also called for the end of academic selection, including the 11-plus exam. The current system of testing was found to have allowed a “two-tier culture” in education to continue.

The UNCRC called for selection tests’ abolition in 2008.

Communist Party of Ireland Chair Lynda Walker said that the party welcomed any move that exposed and ended paramilitary attacks on children.

“Unfortunately the use of such violence is the norm in many working-class communities,” she said.

“It is a leftover from the decades of the ‘troubles’ and the inadequacy of the police.”