Men advocating for increased paternity leave have affixed life-size dolls in slings to bronze sculptures of men located across central London and have urged the government to strengthen parental leave provisions in the UK, which are among the least generous in Europe for fathers.

In an effort to draw attention to the value of father-child connection, activists from a new campaign group called Dad Shift tethered model babies to monuments of football players Tony Adams and Thierry Henry, the actor Gene Kelly, and engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

With just two statutory weeks of leave, paid at £184.03 per week, the UK offers the weakest paternity leave package in all of Europe. According to a recent study, as a result, one in three men in the UK did not take any paternity leave following the birth of their child, and one in two families where the fathers did take leave reported experiencing financial difficulties afterwards.The campaigners plan to delivery an open letter to the prime minister later this month, calling on him to take swift action to improve paternity leave.“Proper parental leave for fathers and co-parents is good for mothers, good for babies, good for fathers and good for society too. Countries with six or more weeks’ paternity leave have a gender pay gap that’s 4% smaller and a workforce participation gap that is 3.7% smaller too, meaning change can help grow the economy while helping British families,” the open letter says.

Campaigners are asking for “parental leave that is affordable for people to take, gives a substantial allowance of time, and supports equality among parents”.

New polling carried out for the campaign launch found that 90% of fathers said they wanted to be a bigger part of their children’s lives. The Labour party promised in its manifesto that its government would “review the parental leave system, so it best supports working families, within its first year in government”.

The Dad Shift’s co-founders, George Gabriel and Alex Lloyd Hunter, travelled around central London to attach model babies to the statues of men, assisted by Mel Pinet, who runs classes to help parents master the art of tying baby slings, and bond with their newborn babies. The sight of the statues of distinguished male figures with babies wrapped to their chest attracted considerable interest from morning commuters.

“A lot of people stopped to take photographs; people responded very warmly. We meant it to be a positively provocative sight,” Gabriel said. “There’s such an imbalance in our portrayal and understanding of figures in public life. Women are often asked questions about their lives as wives, mothers and daughters, while male figures in public life are often not invited to share that part of themselves. We wanted to call attention to their role as fathers and also the need to better support people when babies arrive into their lives.”

Sitting between platforms eight and nine at Paddington station, Brunel (who had three children) looked very at ease with a baby nestling in his right arm and his top hat in his left hand. Kelly, swinging from a lamp-post in Leicester Square and brandishing an umbrella, looked cheerful, a baby strapped tightly to his chest.

The 1983 sculpture by John Seward Johnson II depicts a rushed city worker with a briefcase and raincoat in hand, trying to hail a taxi. When a baby in a sling is added, the image of the worker is quickly transformed into a stressed-out parent attempting to drop off his child at daycare before work. Campaigners in another location fastened twins to Stephen Melton's statue, which depicts a wealthy trader using a cell phone.

The creator of the campaign-supporting online forum Dope Black Dads, Marvyn Harrison, expressed optimism that the government would want to give the matter top priority. "It seems pressing. The UK lags behind other nations in this area, which makes us unique," he remarked. "We must create lasting conditions for men to be better parents, husbands, friends, people.”