Hume praises the courage of Britain's poor

Church and poverty: Disadvantaged make impassioned appeal for help - and prostitute delivers a sermon to the archbishop

Cardinal Basil Hume, leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, yesterday called a former teenage prostitute "his sister". He was speaking at a conference on poverty during which church leaders heard impassioned pleas for action from the disadvantaged.

One of them, "Lisa", was a prostitute in her teens, starting at the age of 10. "The average age of all prostitutes on streets is 14," she told the conference. "Do not see child prostitutes, but prostituted children . . . used as seminal spittoons.

"Women shouldn't have to do it, not because of the morality of the issue, but because of what it does to us, its survivors."

The Cardinal replied: "She is a courageous woman. She is my sister. She is human and she has had a hard time. I would like to pay tribute to her."

The leaders of all the main British churches, along with MPs, social workers, business people and priests, gathered in London for a conference to hear the testimony of 12 people. Moraene Roberts, from London, said that she had had to put her eldest son into care to guarantee him an education. Other parents, she said, had been advised to put their children on the "at risk" register to get nursery places.

Parents in poverty were shown the hugely better facilities which foster parents could offer. "The greatest lack in my life, is the lack of education: there must be a priority for the children of illiterate, badly educated and badly housed parents, so that they don't enter schools disadvantaged at the age of five," Ms Roberts said.

Jamie Phillips, a 17-year-old woman in care, said that if she had stayed with her family, she would have been dead. Yet government policy encouraged people to leave care and.

"We are suddenly thrown from full-time care into full-time neglect. We do not have the comfort of a supportive family, social services are our family," she explained.

Hilary Russell, chairwoman of Church Action on Poverty, the charity which organised the conference, said that nearly 4 million people were living on incomes below the level of Income Support; and nearly 10 million lived in households which relied on income support.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey, said he had been born in poverty, referring to his upbringing on a council estate. "We must get beyond slogans. I believe in the enterprise society. I also believe in the stakeholder society. But neither will be satisfactory if people feel excluded," he said.

CASE STUDY

Twelve people told the conference about their experience of poverty. Here are two of them.

t "Lisa", a prostitute.

Lisa went on the streets at the age of 10 after being abused. "Two- thirds of prostitutes have been abused as children. Prostitution is not about sexuality or fulfilling sexual fantasies - it is about abuse. It is about poverty. It is not about choice. It is awful, dangerous, and life-threatening; 73 per cent of prostitutes have been raped repeatedly and beaten.

"Take a good look at me. Next time you see a prostitute, you do not see a whore, you see a survivor. You see a woman trying to feed herself and her children. You think: 'It couldn't be my daughter, she's at university.' But poverty and prostitution among students are at an all-time high. You think, it couldn't be my mother; 89 per cent of prostitutes over 16 are mothers."

t David Torrance, Glasgow, 45.

Raised in the Gorbals, he was left with three young children by his wife, a diagnosed schizophrenic. He raised them in poverty, in an isolated life. "That led me to alcohol, and then I ended up in prison."

He served four years and emerged to be evicted from his home for non- payment of arrears. He was rescued by the Simon Community which found him a place to live. This emergency accommodation cost the taxpayer pounds 300 a week - the sum of his original rent arrears.

He could not go on to further education because a grant would render him ineligible for his housing. "People end up paying for being poor," he said.