It’s child labourers who will pick up the tab for Johnson’s migration policies | Frances Ryan

About 700,000 children are already caring for relatives after the scandalous withdrawal of funding for social care

As soon as Marissa was old enough to walk, she started caring for her mum. Suzanna, 51, who was left with severe spinal damage and arthritis on top of long-term breathing problems after two car accidents. The five-year-old helped her disabled mum to get to their third-floor flat in a block with no lift access; she would hold her mum’s hand as they went up, step by step – all 150 of them. Marissa would bring her water, do the laundry, and shuffle to reach the bottom supermarket shelves.

She would even try to help cook tea: dry pasta and tomatoes. “Marissa would say, ‘Mummy, you have a mouth full of hands, let me help’,” Suzanna says. “She meant ‘you’ve got your hands full’.”

Child carers are a grotesque example of a bigger scandal, where the burden falls on the backs of struggling families

Related: Immigration and how we value low-paid work | Letters

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from Children | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2uzFTlH