An activist group has placed installations depicting child-sized mannequins wrapped in shock blankets in chain-link cages across New York City.

No Kids in Cages, an anti-family separation initiative, launched the moving campaign on Wednesday.

The purpose of the protest was to encourage lawmakers to support the Keep Families Together Act, which forces the state to keep all migrant families together unless there is reason to suspect trafficking or abuse.

These art installations directed attention to the fact that there are still children being detained separately from their parents on the US-Mexico border despite the “official” end of the Trump Administration’s family separation policy.

There was also an audio element playing recordings that were smuggled out of a detention camp.

The cages were placed in high profile areas, like Brooklyn’s McCarren Park and Manhattan’s St Marks Place.

“The installations – models of ‘children’ in cages – are intended to be an emotional, provocative, multisensory experience that represents the conditions that children are being subjected to at the border due to the Department of Justice’s Zero Tolerance Immigration Enforcement Policy,” said protest organisers in a statement.

The protest project was done in conjunction with advertising agency Badger and Winters and Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services Texas, a non-profit organisation that provides services to immigrants.

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