Children’s rights are
vital and valuable being eroded in need of protection
What’s happening?
Poverty and inequality
England is a deeply unequal country and is becoming more so. While billionaires got £150 BILLION richer in the last two years alone most of us are feeling the pain of the biggest drop in living standards ever experienced in peacetime. And children are one of the groups hardest hit.
Economic and social rights agreed to by the UK government are not being respected nor made real and the impacts of this failure are growing. Spiralling costs of housing and other essentials combined with stagnant wages, cuts to welfare and other state support and services mean more and more children and their families are struggling with dangerous and difficult living conditions.
This is a serious failure of human rights. Children, their families and the communities in which they live are being harmed.
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 on UK
Growing state intrusion
“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
Ignoring our economic and social rights and cutting state support leads to social problems. The government response is often increased state intrusion from police, social services and other agencies.
Measures include widespread tracking and monitoring of children, unique identifiers – basically national ID for children – beefed up police powers, greater use of sanctions including fines and prison sentences and ever more storing and sharing of children’s personal information without their consent.
Measures might have positive aims around safeguarding and education but by sidestepping children’s rights they harm not help children.
Children’s rights must be at the heart of all state action and policy.
Reaching boiling point
The wider direction of government policy is making these problems worse, amplifying injustice and bringing the situation to boiling point.
- Privatisation of the state.
Best interests of children are being pushed aside for the interests of corporations and shareholders.
Increasingly it is asset managers who are profiting from our housing, our state infrastructure, from children.
- Aim for UK to be a "global AI superpower".
Driving the weakening of privacy rights and data protection so personal data can be used.
Use of AI for inappropriate and dangerous purposes including policing of vulnerable children and families, amplifying inequalities.
- Wider attacks on human rights.
Very few people or politicians openly attack children’s rights. But rights belong to us all. Any measures which undermine human rights also undermine children’s right, putting them at risk.
We are at a critical point.
“Automation has the capacity to scale up flawed policy decisions, causing incredible harm to thousands of people when not done properly.“
Stephanie Handcock
Human Rights Watch
Interview: Don’t Fear the Machines, Fear the People Running Them
What can we do?
Lots! Most important is to
‘use them, don’t lose them’
Rights were made for difficult times and children need this protection now more than ever. We need to understand what these rights are and make sure that children are protected and supported as they should be. That their freedoms are not taken away.
Join us in standing up for children’s rights.
