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Editorial
The subject of this newsletter - Moving Families - is horribly relevant. News from the Sudan tells of more than one million people displaced by violence. Many more may have to flee their homes or be killed before any solution to the conflict is found. Personal stories from the Congo, from Zambia, from Sudanese refugees in Australia, from refugees from Burma and Vietnam in USA and from Kosovo in UK tell of the brutality of armed soldiers, the fear of imprisonment and possible death and the struggle to re-settle in a new land, often not knowing whether close family members are alive or dead. Many nearby countries have established settlements or compounds to receive these uprooted people who often have to live in desperate conditions. Some developed countries are opening detention centres for those seeking to enter their borders and articles make clear the cost to the families, and particularly the children, of the enforced waiting and uncertainty.
Then there are the migrant workers. Recently, headlines in English newspapers told of the tragedy of the Chinese cockle pickers when 23 migrant workers were drowned on a dangerous beach. Some of the victims had mobile phones and sent desperate messages to their faraway families as they realised they were trapped by the fast rising tide and there was no escape from the sea and the treacherous sands. As with many migrant workers, they were subject to exploitation by unscrupulous employers. The cockles were sold on at a profit of five times the amount the pickers were paid for their dangerous work. The investigation into their deaths discovered that a group of 40 migrant workers lived in one house. Those who survived were frightened and vulnerable. With their papers held by employers and their legal status in England uncertain, they were isolated by fear, in alien surroundings and cut off from the settled Chinese communities in other parts of the country.
This newsletter underlines the theme of the exploitation of migrant workers - women from the Philippines and other parts of Asia seeking employment abroad so they can send money home to their families, migrant workers in China, again with no clear legal protection, who move to the cities in search of a better life. Globalisation has added further impetus to such economic migration, with the huge disparities in wealth and opportunity between peoples and countries a driving force. With their minimal wage, working in conditions with no regard for their safety, the cockle pickers could still earn far more than was possible in their own country. The housing given to them, appalling by English standards, was not so terrible when compared to the conditions they had left behind.
Much of the abuse of migrant workers goes on behind closed doors and is unknown. In England, the deaths of the cockle pickers made some of it visible. The pictures and reports from areas such as the Sudan also make visible the terrible suffering caused to families displaced by war. We hope that this newsletter adds to the knowledge and understanding of the plight of families forced to move - including those whose way of life is travelling. But such knowledge must lead to action: to prayer, to giving, to learning about migrant workers and refugees and travellers in our communities and to taking action to welcome and support them. It must also lead to action to reduce the shameful gulf between rich and poor. The story of the rich man and the beggar (Luke 16: 19-31) is a clear condemnation of indifference in the face of such injustice.
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