Children have been at risk since the 60's on countless teams, Xavier himself recruits them at early age to be child soldiers. Again, do you know anything about what Bastian was doing in Operation: Zero Tolerance or what other villains were doing to them once captured?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation:_Zero_Tolerance
That's the basics of what Iceman had to face back in those conditions.
Them not being in gulag isn't a sign that they're kept nice and comfy when a villain has them in their crutches.
It really isn't, the writers choosing to make them more brutal isn't proof that it was "necessary." Life before Decimation had massive obstacles that they faced without turning into Jack Bauer.
Of course the Council would be ok with this, the X-men aren't heroes any longer. They're not right about everything they do. That's just being an X-man, situations like that come with being a super-hero. When Kitty was a barely trained student she had to survive a demon invading the X-Mansion all by herself, reminiscent of "Alien."
You do know she can incapacitate people without doing that, right? That's why Kitty's phasing is incredibly dangerous. They can't hurt her but she can hurt them by phasing through their heads to knock them out. She's not supposed to be Wolverine.