Latest News Coverage
Telegraph: ‘Tackling inequality’ – open letter of Just Fair, The Equality Trust and 20 other signatories asking the government to bring the socio-economic equality duty (s1 of the Equality Act 2010) into force.
18 December 2016
The Times: Open letter of 165 groups, including Just Fair, asking the Prime Minister to drop the government’s commitment to “scrap” the Human Rights Act.
10 December 2016
The Mirror: Brexit has left the poor up the creek without a paddle as ‘rats leave a sinking ship’.
7 July 2016
The Guardian: Five stories buried by Brexit.
7 July 2016
Mother Jones: UN Report Says UK Economic Policies are a Violation of Human Rights.
1 July 2016
The Independent: Government austerity policy a breach of international human rights, says UN report.
30 June 2016
Belfast Telegraph: UK’s austerity policy a breach of international human rights, says UN report.
29 June 2016
New Statesman: The UN declares the UK’s austerity policies in breach of international human rights obligations.
29 June 2016
BBC News: UK welfare reforms to be investigated by United Nations.
30 October 2015
29 October 2015
29 October 2015
Dr Jessie Hohmann, author of Just Fair’s Report ‘Protecting the Right to Housing in England: A Context of Crisis’, discusses the housing crisis and right to housing with Steph McGovern on BBC Breakfast here.
14 October 2015
Sky News: UK ‘Breaching Human Rights’ Over Housing.
14 October 2015
The Guardian: UK housing crisis ‘in breach of human rights’.
28 April 2015
The Mirror (page 2 of print version): Disabled failed by savage cuts: Coalition treatment is an attack on their human rights.
7 July 2014
The Guardian: UK ‘sleepwalking into violating disabled people’s human rights’.
7 July 2014
Al Jazeera: UK row over Christian values and food poverty.
20 April 2014
Eklessia: UK is violating the basic right to food, say charities.
17 April 2014
The Independent: The food poverty scandal that shames Britain: Nearly 1m people rely on handouts to eat – and benefit reforms may be to blame.
16 April 2014
ITV News: Charities claim thousands without easy access to food.
16 April 2014
Daily Mirror: Britain’s hunger crisis: One MILLION food parcels handed out despite UK having sixth richest economy.
16 April 2014
Huffington Post: One Million Brits Now Using Food Banks, Charities Say UK Has Violated ‘Human Right To Food’.
16 April 2014
The Huffington Post: Food Banks Not Linked With Growing Poverty, Says Millionaire Lord Freud.
3 July 2013
The Mirror: The families thousands of miles apart blighted by hunger.
5 June 2013
The Guardian: Tory MP: Food poverty is growing, food banks are not the answer.
4 June 2013
Channel 4 News: Half a million people turn to food banks to survive.
30 May 2013
Al Jazeera: UK food banks offer lifeline to thousands.
16 March 2013
The Guardian: Magdalena Sepúlveda: ‘Austerity is devastating for the world’s poorest’.
26 Feb 2013
The Guardian: Food banks surge leads to Defra inquiry.
24 Feb 2013
The Huffington Post: Food Poverty: UN Special Rapporteur Finds Austerity, Food Banks And Working Poor In UK ‘Extremely Worrying.’
19 Feb 2013
The Guardian: Food poverty ‘puts UK’s international human rights obligations in danger.
18 Feb 2013
The Independent: UN official alarmed by rise of food banks in UK.
17 Feb 2013
Latest Press Releases
28 June 2017 – The human rights group Just Fair and the medical charity Doctors of the World denounce in a report that the Memorandum of Understanding that allows immigration authorities to access non-clinical personal information undermines patients’ right to health.
READ PRESS RELEASE
15 June 2017 – Last month, the UK received 227 human rights recommendations from other countries. The Government will be expected to notify the UN what recommendations will be voluntarily accepted by the UK.
In light of the UK’s longstanding commitment to human rights, Just Fair urges the Government to accept and implement all of them, and in particular those related to economic and social rights: the ratification of the Optional Protocol to the ICESCR, the provision of legal aid to ensure access to justice by those who need it, child poverty targets, the socio-economic equality duty, and sexual and reproductive rights in Northern Ireland.
READ LETTER
25 April 2017 – Ahead of the snap general election of 8 June, Just Fair calls on all political parties to make a stand for economic and social rights. Specifically, Just Fair recommends them to include ten commitments in their manifestos.
READ
24 February 2017 – The Equality Trust and Just Fair are urgently calling on the DWP to support the commencement of the socio-economic duty in section 1 of the Equality Act 2010. It introduced a duty on public bodies that required them “when making decisions of a strategic nature about how to exercise its functions [to] have due regard to the desirability of exercising them in a way that is designed to reduce the inequalities of outcome which result from socio-economic disadvantage.”
This is the first step in a new joint campaign on equality and human rights: #1forequality.
READ PRESS RELEASE
June 2016 – The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has expressed “serious concern” about the impact of regressive policies on the enjoyment of economic and social rights in a damning report on the UK.
Based on evidence it received from Just Fair and other civil society groups, the Committee concludes that austerity measures and social security reform breach the UK’s international human rights obligations.
This was the Committee’s first review of the UK since 2009 and thus its first verdict on the austerity policies pursued by successive governments since the financial crash. Over eight months the Committee conducted a dialogue with government officials, the UK human rights commissions and civil society groups.
READ PRESS RELEASE
June 2016 – The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights recorded evidence from human rights institutions and civil society organisations including Just Fair Consortium’s paralle report.The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights website has reported Just Fair’s testimony as follows…
“Just Fair drew attention to the unprecedented cuts to public services in the United Kingdom. Between 2010 and 2015, the Government had cut the annual social security budget by 20 billion British pounds. It was clear that the cuts were permanent and an independent research had shown that the cumulative impact of the social security reforms had deprived many of an income sufficient for an adequate standard of living. The current levels of benefits for persons with disabilities were already failing to meet their essential living needs, and a rising numbers of people were using food banks. Rates for asylum seekers and migrants were grossly inadequate, whereas cuts in State benefits had impacted directly on the enjoyment of the right to housing. In addition, the tax policy was regressive. More than 1.25 million people were living in absolute destitution, among them 312,000 children.
Just Fair noted that the scale of the cuts was important in itself, adding that the cuts were permanent and so many people relied on social security because of low salaries. It had a direct impact on working families, which had experienced a 12 per cent drop in their incomes and were forced to use food banks. That had been a major change since 2009.”
READ MORE
June 2016 – the leading charity to advance economic and social rights in the UK – is heading to Geneva on 13 June to present evidence to United Nations experts that rising levels of deprivation, poverty and inequality breach the UK’s obligations under international law.
READ PRESS RELEASE
May 2016 – Just Fair has made a new submission to the UN body that monitors compliance with the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The submission sets out evidence that the UK is failing to comply with its obligations under the Covenant in respect of, among others, the right to social security and the right to an adequate standard of living, including food and housing. Just Fair also highlights multiple concerns about the economic and social rights of disabled people.
READ SUBMISSION
Representatives from Just Fair met with the CESCR on 14 October 2015 to highlight concerns that successive UK government policies have led to violations of the right to
food, housing, adequate healthcare for migrants and people with mental health
problems, and the economic and social rights of disabled people.