On 18 February 2013 Just Fair ran the ‘Freedom from Hunger: Realising the Right to Food in the UK’ event with Prof Olivier de Schutter (United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food), Chris Mould (Executive Chair of the Trussel Trust) and Baroness Lister (Just Fair Patron and member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights).
The right to food is a human right recognised under international law. It requires, among other things, that people should be able to afford adequate amounts of food without having to compromise other basic needs, such as housing and clothing.
Sadly, in the UK, this is not a right that everyone enjoys. Children are going to bed hungry and families are facing the distress and humiliation of queuing for emergency food parcels, often after having had to walk for miles. The number of people fed by foodbanks run by the Trussell Trust doubled to almost 130,000 in the last year – and is expected to rise to 200,000 by April 2013.
Just Fair believes this is wrong. It is shaming that the seventh richest country in the world cannot ensure a basic threshold of decency for all of it people. To this end, Just Fair organised this event to reframe political and media discussion about hunger in the UK.
Click here for the conference report
Click here for more information, including podcasts from the lecture
