ATD Fourth World Challenges the UK’s Record on Family Rights at the United Nations
Above: Members of GRIPP collaborate to write their UN submission of evidence
Press release — FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Geneva, Switzerland – 13-14 February 2025 – Delegates with lived and living experience of poverty from ATD Fourth World are at the United Nations, demanding urgent action to protect family rights in the UK. This human rights movement, led by people in deep poverty, has provided powerful evidence to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR), exposing how poverty is wrongly conflated with the risk of future neglect—leading to the unnecessary removal of children from their families, including into contested closed adoptions.
ATD contributed to four separate submissions to CESCR ahead of the UK’s 7th review. This evidence was gathered by teenagers and parents with lived experience of both poverty and interactions with children’s social care, as well as by social work professionals and academics:
🔹 The main submission, in ATD’s name, is here.
🔹 The End Child Poverty Coalition, from ATD’s Youth Voices project, is here.
🔹 GRIPP (Growing Rights Instead of Poverty Partnership)’s submission is here. In this video (to be made public on the 13th), you can hear directly from GRIPP members.
🔹 ATD also contributed evidence to Just Fair, which covers the right to family life on pages 13-14 of its submission.
These findings highlight the emotional harm caused by forced adoptions and the need for policies that support—rather than break apart—families in poverty.
Key demands for the UK Government include:
🔹 Ending closed adoptions and prioritising kinship care with adequate support.
🔹 Reforming the Children and Social Work Act 2017 to focus on family support rather than risk management.
🔹 Expanding parent-to-parent advocacy schemes provided by people with lived experience of children’s social care and of poverty to deter cultures of risk-aversion and povertyism.
We are in Geneva at the UN to highlight the urgent state of everyday rights in the UK – it’s clear that the system is broken. We gave evidence to the UN because we need action to build a fairer UK with policies that strengthen families, not tear them apart.
#CESCR2025 – The UN session is scheduled to take place on Thursday 13 February and Friday 14 February from 9am-12pm (GMT).