At Just Fair, we often speak of human rights not only as legal protections, but as tools for justice and principles that can shape the way we live, communicate, and rebuild the world around us. The human rights-based approach (HRBA) is at the centre of this vision – a framework grounded in values of participation, accountability, empowerment, legality, and crucially non-discrimination and equality. In our most recent in-person quarterly meeting of the London Communities Human Rights Programme (LCHRP), this principle took centre stage.
Why focus on non-discrimination and equality?
Because we must. Across the UK, we are witnessing a growing wave of political rhetoric, policymaking, and activity that seeks to marginalise, divide, and restrict. The rise of the far right and the growing normalisation of rights-restricting narratives threaten not only the dignity, safety and rights of specific groups – migrants, racialised communities, LGBTQ+ people, those living in poverty – but the very fabric of our shared humanity and democracy.
This summer saw an emboldening of violent far-right protests, and an environment so hostile that some charities closed their offices, and others installed safe rooms. Though this is part of a global trend, (in his recent report to the UN General Assembly, Special Rapporteur on poverty, Olivier De Schutter presented a report on the global rise of far-right populism and the future of social protection) the impacts are felt at the local, and personal, level.
Across the UK, people are being told, implicitly or explicitly, that their rights are dependent on where they’re born, how they worship, how they identify, or what they earn. The impact is not abstract, these rights underlie our access to and experience of food, housing, work, and other facets of everyday life. Organisations working on human rights and social justice are finding their capacity is being taken up advocating for the basic universality of human rights, with resources directed not towards advancing aims but simply holding the line.
A human rights-based response
In this context, the London Communities Human Rights Programme matters more than ever. During the quarterly meeting, the four community groups in the programme – Community Plan for Holloway, Indoamerican Refugee and Migrant Organisation (IRMO), Southall Community Alliance, and Unfold – alongside Just Fair and our programme partner, the British Institute of Human Rights, reflected on this trend and its impact on our work. We explored what non-discrimination and equality look like in practice. We asked:
- What does it mean to embed equality in our internal ways of working?
- How can we support communities to challenge discriminatory practices?
- What changes when duty bearers take equality seriously?
Groups spoke powerfully about the barriers their communities continue to face when accessing services, taking part in public life, or being treated with dignity. Experiences of racism, xenophobia, misogyny, ableism, and classism remain deeply embedded in the interactions people have with public institutions. The organisations reported a growing reluctance among those most in need to seek support or speak out. People with insecure migration status, unstable housing, or reliance on social security often fear that raising concerns could lead to retribution. As a result, those facing the most acute rights violations are often the least able to claim their rights – silenced by the very systems meant to protect them. At our meeting, teams shared the approaches they are testing to try and make systems more fit for purpose and overcome these challenges, including working with people who feel unsafe to advocate on their behalf.
We shared instances of our own communities picking up the language of the far right – speaking of the “good migrant” who arrives legally, works hard and contributes, and the “undeserving” benefits claimant. These narratives reinforce hierarchies of worth and belonging that pit people against each other, rather than drawing us together. It is a reminder that inequality doesn’t just shape policies and systems, it shapes how we see ourselves and one another.
There’s no one solution to systemic inequality. But what we do know is that collective action works. By coming together in this project, LCHRP partners are building shared strategies to name, challenge, and redress inequality. They are learning from each other, co-developing rights-based tools, and pushing back against harmful power inequalities. This is the strength of a programme built on partnership. Though their focuses are different, the groups are unified by their use of human rights as a common language to speak back to injustice.
Human rights and social justice – a bridge
One of the most powerful conversations we return to in the programme is how we frame human rights. Too often, human rights are treated as distant legal concepts, disconnected from the realities of people’s daily lives. Knowledge can be liberating, but it can also weigh heavily. Without a clear path to justice, knowing that your unaffordable, poorly maintained home is not just a symptom of a broken housing system, but a violation of your human rights and a failure of government promises, is to carry an added burden. This is why rooting our rights in social justice, and calls for decent housing, racial equity, access to healthcare, strengthens both our cause and community. It reminds us that human rights are not abstract ideals, but living tools for fairness, dignity, and collective strength.
Human rights become not just about protection, but about possibility. Not just defence, but demand. The human rights-based approach offers tools to ensure that justice isn’t only a vision, but a practice.
Embedding equality – from the inside out
The community groups in the London Communities Human Rights Programme are not just asking duty bearers to do better – they’re doing the work themselves.
Unfold is developing internal processes rooted in anti-discrimination and lived experience, with their Women’s and Youth Advisory Councils holding the organisation accountable to the people it serves. Southall Community Alliance is developing partnerships to push for change at the local authority level. IRMO is supporting migrant communities to understand and claim their rights in a hostile policy environment. Community Plan for Holloway continues to challenge planning systems by foregrounding the voices of women, young people, and formerly imprisoned people in the redevelopment of Holloway Prison.
These are not isolated actions; they are part of a broader shift.
Looking ahead
At a time when division is being manufactured and amplified, our response must be to build stronger solidarities. To tie human rights more closely to the struggle for social justice. To insist that equality is not optional, it is essential. The programme is a living example of what this looks like.
Over the next three years, we will continue to support each other to put the human rights-based approach into action not only in how we advocate, but in how we lead, organise, and imagine. Together, we are not only resisting rights regression, we are building something better.
If you’re interested in embedding a human rights-based approach in your own work – or simply want to learn more about what equality in practice can look like – get in touch with Just Fair’s Human Rights Officers, Laura Grace and Ben Onyibo Ameke Robinson at [email protected] and [email protected].
Background image by Cecilia Castelli
