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Welfare reforms investigated

September 09 2015
UN to investigate whether welfare reforms have violated people’s human rights

The United Nations (UN) is to investigate whether welfare reforms that have led to thousands of ill and disabled people being sanctioned and declared fit to work, have violated people’s human rights.

According to the Sunday Herald, representatives from the UN’s Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities will visit the UK in coming months to consider.

It will look at whether “grave or systematic violations” of disabled people’s human rights have occurred.

It comes after Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith outlined targets to reduce the number of people on Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) by one million.

Figures released from the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) show that 80 people a month die shortly after a claim finished, with campaigners and unions warning that more deaths will follow as a result of the harsh welfare reforms.

In the most tragic cases claimants took their own lives after their benefits were stopped.

However, those who had been sanctioned were urged to appeal, as the latest figures show that 58 per cent of ESA appeals are successful.

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