The social security system of the UK has been described as deliberately heartless by activists who maintain that it falls short of global human rights systems. Amnesty International, a charity promoting human rights, released a report that claimed that the social security system in the UK “lacks conformity to international human rights norms.
It stated:
“The outcome is a system that, by design, perpetuates the denial of living standards to those who depend on it, subjecting them to orchestrated stigma and a systematic stripping of their dignity.”
Neil Cowan, Scotland director for Amnesty International UK, said a deliberately cruel system destroys people’s dignity – it strips away dignity by creation and tramples on people’s human rights on a daily basis.
As part of its Social Insecurity report, Amnesty International interviewed over 700 claimants of assistance – 74 of them in Scotland. Amnesty International stated that failed social security requires a systems transformation and called for the establishment of an autonomous Social Security Commission to ensure this.
But the campaign organization also called for the UK administration to immediately reverse damaging social security amounts, sanctions and limits, such as the two-child limit on certain advantages. It called for legal systems to be established to “guarantee everyone’s fundamental human rights to food, shelter, and satisfaction are enshrined in the law.”.
The Scottish administration has committed to reducing the two-child benefit cap in Scotland next year. However, Cowan emphasized that ministers at Holyrood must also understand assignments from this report by doing more to guarantee that the Scottish social security system gives people the help they require.
He explained that this must be done by raising the leading model Scottish Child Payment for poor households so that it “goes further in cutting down poverty throughout Scotland.”
He went on to say:
“The UK social security system is closed, too short, and for some totally out of reach. It is making people across Scotland and the United Kingdom make difficult decisions that none of us should be making.”