Children's rights
are needed now...
Inequality
Life is much harder than it should be for too many children and their families across England. Government after government have allowed inequality to grow, with policies which favour the wealthy.
Without respect of our ‘everyday’ rights to health, housing, food and an adequate standard of living there has been nothing to protect children and their families from dangerous and distressing circumstances.
The fabric of the state – the support and services we have a right to expect – has been cut into pieces.
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)
Policing
In place of support there has been an increase in policing of those struggling.
Instead of universal services, choice and consent there is surveillance, data sharing and targeted measures. These can be punitive and harmful to children, their families and communities.
Intrusion into people’s lives – and the erosion of rights to privacy, family life and rights over information about us – has been claimed as needed to protect children, ignoring the harm inflicted on lives by this approach.
Boiling point
Making these problems much worse, and amplifying the inequality, is the ongoing shift towards privatisation of public services, along with extensive data sharing and dangerous and costly ‘AI’ across government.
“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 now!
Instead of surveillance and costly ‘solutions’, which blame children and families for the challenges they face, we need a rights based approach and a society in which all can thrive.
“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
Join us. Reclaim
Rights for Children