Children's rights
are needed now...
Inequality
Life is much harder than it should be for many children and their families across England.
The support and services we have a right to expect have been heavily cut, while policies have benefited the wealthiest. This ballooning inequality has left many unable to afford even the basics.
Children and their families are some of the hardest hit.
Rights report on uk
“The high number of children [in the UK] living in, or at risk of, poverty is a serious human rights problem affecting every other aspect of their safety and well-being.”
Dunja Mijatović,
Commissioner for Human Rights,
Council of Europe
Report Following Her Visit to the United Kingdom (2022)
Policed
Instead of being helped children and families find themselves held responsible for dealing with the resulting difficult and dangerous circumstances, and blamed if they cannot.
In place of universal services, choice and consent there is surveillance, data sharing, targeted measures and punishment.
Intrusive measures are justified as ‘safeguarding’ even when these responses harm not help children, their families and communities.
More harm
The ongoing shift to ever more information sharing and use of automated decision making systems – sold as ‘AI’ – are amplifying this harm. Practices which stereotype and scapegoat are being automated and injustice meted out at scale, again hurting children and their families.
“Profiling and risk scoring have been found to exacerbate inaccurate and discriminatory categorizations, legitimating biased decision-making and gross injustices…automated welfare systems work to police and punish the most vulnerable families in society, constructing a digital version of the Victorian poorhouse.”
Professors Val Gillies and Ros Edwards and Dr Helene Vannier Ducasse
De Gruyter Oldenbourg : Calibrating families: Data behaviourism and the new algorithmic logic (2024)
Rights protect
If the government made real our ‘everyday’ rights as they legally committed to – rights to housing, food, an adequate standard of living, to health – these would save children’s lives and make society better for all.
We need an end to blaming children and families for situations outside of their control, those that the government is responsible for. Instead, our human rights must be fully respected and made real and kept at the heart of all state intervention and involvement.
“Rights must be at the heart of keeping children safe. Surveillance and sanctions hurt not help. Children and their families need support.”
The Victoria Climbié Foundation UK
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Rights for Children
