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United Kingdom
There is a clear link between gender and poverty in the UK today, where there are high rates of poverty amongst female headed households. Much of women's poverty is hidden. In poor households, women often deny themselves basics such as food in order to protect their families from the consequences of poverty even in a relatively wealthy country such as the UK.
The Women’s National Commission (WNC) is the official independent advisory body giving the views of women throughout England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales to the UK Government. It has over 400 partner organisations and individual partners drawn from women’s voluntary and community groups and organisations, professional associations, trade unions and faith groups, including the Mothers’ Union. The Mothers’ Union contributed to a recent statement by WNC to the 49 th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women in March. It highlighted some serious and major barriers that women in the UK considered must be addressed in order for their lives, and those of other women around the world, to improve. One of the most pressing tasks is to address the very real poverty that women in the UK experience. Some of the women most affected are lone mothers and single pensioners, primarily due to caring responsibilities, which means they either cannot work or work part time – often in low paid sectors. According to some statistics, of all lone parent households, 53% are poor, and older women, if single, have a 24% chance of living in poverty. Almost two-thirds of pensioners are women and their average pension is half the income of retired men. This is because they have not had opportunity, often because of their caring roles, to earn enough for a reasonable pension. The combination of racism and sexism makes Black and Minority Ethnic women particularly vulnerable to poverty.
Bristol
“Dear God, please let a punter pick her up soon.” It was winter and bitterly cold as the city braced itself for snow. Walking onto the square I saw the girl in her early 20s standing on the street corner in a mini skirt, wet through, shaking with the cold – and determined to get picked up by a punter. She probably had not eaten that day, but however cold it got and however long it took, I knew she would not walk away. So I found myself praying this. Understand, having worked amongst young and adult women involved in street prostitution for three years, I have found it to be wholly abusive, exploitative and to exact an immense cost to those women who are involved in it. But at that moment my parttheology and convenient answers ran out. At any one time around 200 women will be working in street prostitution in Bristol – getting picked up from the street and giving sex in exchange for money, drugs, or a place to stay. If we understand poverty as not simply a lack of money and material possessions, but a lack of choice, then these women are amongst the poorest in Europe. What’s more, if you live or work in any city in the UK, you probably pass them every day without a moment’s thought. I did.
Some believe that these women choose to enter prostitution, make their money and care little for the consequences. The truth is that all of the women I met slid into prostitution without ever meaning to, and then found it almost impossible to climb out of the pit they were in. 99% of female sex workers in Bristol are addicted to crack cocaine or heroin, often both. It is money to feed these all-consuming addictions that fuels street prostitution. Many of the women begin using drugs as teenagers, often to escape from the abuse they are subjected to or to cope with broken family lives, or poverty. They drop out of school, and leave home without any expectations of themselves. Their self-worth is on the floor. From here in it is easy to accept any relationship that comes along. It is easy to cover up the way you feel about your lifestyle with heroin that melts your fears away, or crack that makes you feel like a god. It is easy to pick up a drug habit, but very difficult to free yourself from one.
Women become deeply entrenched in a cycle of drug addiction and prostitution. Every day, however you feel, you have to get up and stand on the street, offering yourself to a stranger. You could be raped, violently attacked, robbed or pick up a sexually transmitted infection. You don’t always have time to eat or find somewhere decent to sleep, so you quickly get sick. Your family find it too painful to know you. Any children you have are likely to be taken into local authority care as you are unable to look after them. You use more drugs to cover up the pain of your spiralling life.
But hope has moved into the neighbourhood. The One25 Project works amongst these women, providing essential health, food, information and support services through its van outreach programme. The project’s drop-in centre provides a raft of support services, and gives the women respect and dignity. The staff and volunteers also provide individual support to women at home, in court, in hospital, in prison. Quietly, and in the everyday events of life, One25 is saying, “Wait, it doesn’t have to be like this”. Through their core values of relationship with the women, and love, they gently challenge the lack of choice, the abject poverty that the women have come to accept as their lot. And it works. Slowly, women break the cycle and lead a new life. There is nothing extraordinary about the One25 team. The staff team and 80 volunteers who support the project are simply local women who want to make a difference. Often, as in my lost prayer in the cold, they sense only their own poverty and powerlessness. But the difference is the extraordinary God who works with them and through and around them because they take seriously His challenge to all forms of poverty, “I have come that you might have life and have it to the full”
Scotland
A Community House was founded in 1999 at a council house in Alloa, Scotland, and because of the increased need and the rising numbers wishing to attend, the project has now moved into a block of four flats which have been renovated into a new large purpose-built Community House.
The Community House is situated in one of the most deprived areas of Scotland. We serve an area with many economical and social problems. There is, and has been, long-term unemployment in the area for some time. The young people we work with come from predominately female lone-parent families. The poverty experienced by the women has a major impact on their children. There is also a significantly high level of drug/alcohol dependency in the area and families suffer from the associated problems. Juvenile and adult criminal activity, together with domestic and child abuse, mean that young people’s social and emotional needs and spiritual well-being are not being met. We at the Community House offer a positive alternative to the current drink and drugs culture and aim to develop a holistic approach with a variety of activities each week. All our activities and mealtimes are free to the community and we rely on funding and donations from outside sources.
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