The director of the Children's Law Centre has called for a ban on the use of plastic bullets.
Paddy Kelly was speaking as political leaders continue to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement last week.
During the Troubles 17 people, including eight children, were killed by plastic bullets, described by some as Attenuating Energy Projectiles (AEPs), fired by the security forces.
Fresh concerns about their use were raised last month after the High Court ruled that a British soldier who partially blinded a Catholic schoolboy with a plastic bullet was justified.
Lurgan man Gavin McKenna was just 13 when he suffered permanent eye damage after being struck by a plastic bullet fired by a member of the Royal Irish Regiment in the nationalist Kilwilkie estate in 1997.
Ms Kelly said that recommendations in the 1999 Patten Report on policing reform included finding "effective and less potentially lethal alternative to the plastic baton round" but that this has not happened.
The Children’s Law Centre submitted evidence to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in December 2022.
A presentation was also made to the committee in February highlighting their continued use and the dangers they present.
Ms Kelly said the committee has previously recommended "a complete ban" and highlighted the dangers they pose.
"AEPs pose a significant and potentially lethal threat to children and young people," Ms Kelly said.
“It is hard to comprehend why the use of AEPs continues in Northern Ireland, while they are deemed far too dangerous for use in the rest of the UK.
"Indeed, in 2011, following riots in England, a Home Affairs Committee Report concluded that it would be ‘inappropriate as well as dangerous’ to use baton rounds to police public order disturbances.
"Yet they continue to be used in Northern Ireland, with the most recent statistics showing they were used on at least one child in the last reporting year."
Ms Kelly said recent figures show that plastic bullets were used on one child in the north during the last reporting year.
"Twenty-five years after the Good Friday Agreement, the Children’s Law Centre, yet again, have had to raise at the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child the continued use on children of these potentially lethal weapons," she added.
“It is beyond time that we deliver on the Good Friday Agreement, underpinned by rights and equal protection, by finally banning the use of AEPs in Northern Ireland.”
Assistant Chief Constable Chris Todd said: “Attenuating Energy Projectiles are only deployed in situations of serious public disorder when the use is judged to be absolutely necessary to prevent loss of life, serious injury or substantial damage to property.
“The use of AEPs is approved by a senior officer, of Assistant Chief Constable rank or above, and is automatically referred by the (PSNI) to the Police Ombudsman's Office on all occasions. The issue, deployment and use of AEPs is strictly regulated and falls within national guidelines.”
