A GROUP of mothers began a five-day hunger strike outside Parliament today to highlight the plight of impoverished parents across Britain who are skipping meals to feed their children.
The six mothers are demanding that the government enforces universal free school meals and universal credit to guarantee life’s essentials.
They are also asking ministers to keep their commitments to foreign aid and climate policies, plus the implementation of a loophole-free windfall tax on oil and gas companies’ record profits.
The protesters, part of the Mother’s Manifesto, are due to meet MPs in Parliament tomorrow.
Campaign organiser Emma Hopkins, a 55-year-old herbalist and mother-of-four from Totnes, Devon, said: “I thought there would be something really poignant about holding it on a day when we celebrate mothers, and we celebrate what they stand for, which is around nurturing and caring.
“As mothers, we feel like we should be able to feed children and take care of them and, actually, many mothers are not able to do that, both in the UK and globally.
“I think it’s absolutely shameful that so many people here in the UK are struggling to manage to feed themselves — we’ve got millions of children who are below the poverty line in one of the richest nations.
“We will sit outside Parliament with a table of empty plates and knives and forks,” Ms Hopkins continued.
“On the plates, we have written a number of our demands and we’re making hearts with children’s names on to show our support for their future.”
In January last year, a study by the Food Foundation revealed that 21.6 per cent of households with children had experienced food insecurity, affecting an estimated 3.7 million children in Britain.
Save the Children says that, worldwide, malnutrition is the underlying cause of over 2.6 million child deaths each year, a third of the overall total.
The hunger strikers will be joined by eight other protesters from the campaign, demonstrating between 11am and 4pm on each of the five days and staying in a nearby Buddhist centre at night.
