All too aware of the long shadow thrown by September 11th, the speakers were at pains to explain why it was still important to talk about poverty when there seemed to be more pressing matters on the agenda.
Rev Paul Nicholson, Chair of the Zacchaeus 2000 Trust, said: “The focus must be on the creation of a just peace in the UK. A peace, which is not just the absence of crime and war, but is the presence of a community well-being and is inexorably linked to rights for all.”
He established the existence of poverty in the UK by referring to a plethora of research and criticised the lack of attention policy makers gave to the analysis already being done by a wide variety of groups and associations. He bemoaned the chasm which exists between government and the experience of the poor.
“Governments cause poverty,” he concluded. “Because they lack the information and the ambition to create a nation at ease with itself, founded on a just peace.”
Deputy Director Charter 88, Chris Lawrence-Pietroni, focused on the link between human rights and poverty. He said the UK government had been resistant to a human rights approach to poverty except when looking abroad. At home they had insisted too much on responsibilities and duties.
“Those who are denied their human rights are also denied the opportunity to carry out their responsibilities,” he said. “Their dignity is thereby attacked twice over. Economic, social and cultural rights are not an optional extra. Civil and political rights will not be secured unless economic, social and cultural rights are protected.”
Moraene Roberts gave a moving account of what it is like to have your children taken into care. The UK has the highest rate in Europe of looked after children and of these, the highest proportion come from disadvantaged backgrounds.
“If you were a family living on a mountain-side with no water, no-one would think of taking your children away from you,” she said. “But if you’re living in a council flat with no money for the water meter and you keep your children away from school so they don’t get into trouble for being dirty, you will be subject to a child protection investigation. And things that are beyond your control, like housing, your integration into the neighbourhood and whether you yourself were in care, are taken into account and held against you.”
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