Campaigners from award-winning migrant and refugee rights charity Praxis screened a video on a van in various locations in Westminster last month to make migrant voices heard on child poverty. The action took place as the deadline for submitting evidence to the Child Poverty Taskforce approached.
The video played on loop around Westminster, parking outside the Department for Education, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Home Office – the departments with the power to make changes to protect migrant children from poverty.
A shocking 1/3 of children living in deep poverty are migrant children. This is partly because hundreds of thousands of families experiencing poverty are locked out of vital state support simply because of the ‘No Recourse to Public Funds’ (NRPF).
NRPF is a condition imposed upon almost all migrants in the UK who have not yet attained indefinite leave to remain. This policy was expanded as part of the Hostile Environment in 2012 and acts as a blanket ban on access to the social security system. This includes support specifically designed to protect children from poverty, like Child Benefit, and subsidies for the costs of childcare.
Around four million people in the UK are affected by NRPF, including at least 722,064 children, plus an unknown number of British citizen children affected because their parents do not have settled status.
Why now?
- With its Child Poverty Strategy due to be published in Spring, the Government has a unique opportunity to lift families living in vulnerable situations out of poverty and ensure all children can have the best start to life, no matter where they or their parents were born.
- The Government has said repeatedly that it wants to protect every child from poverty. To do this, they must address the unique challenges facing migrant children. Migrant families face several specific barriers created by immigration law and policy, which makes them more likely to be living in poverty in the first place and find it harder to escape poverty.
- A successful child poverty strategy must address such immigration policies that are driving thousands of families into poverty.
Cat (name changed for anonymity), a campaigner with lived experience of hostile migration policies and member of the NRPF Action Group, said:
“As a mother living with NRPF, we have no life of our own. We work around the clock, unable to spend time with our own children, just to afford the minimum. In order to work, I have to pay so much for childcare, and there is little left for the rest of the kids.
You have no time for yourself. Your mental health suffers. All you need to think is, where’s the next meal coming from? What will I do? How do I pay bills? It feels like a trap.
My children are born here, they are British citizens. But they feel abandoned. Every child deserves the best in life. I urge the Government to scrap NRPF and give all children the chance to reach their potential.”
Ella Abraham, Praxis’ Campaigns Coordinator, said:
“The Government has a choice: stand by while migrant children are trapped in poverty—or take action now. Right now, they’re pulling up the ladder, locking families out of vital support because of the fine print on their visas. A third of children in deep poverty are migrants, and time is running out. Today, their voices roll through Westminster on our big screen, demanding change. Poverty is a political choice—scrap No Recourse to Public Funds and give every child a fair start in life.”