“Wherever it is found, hunger highlights the fault lines of inequality that run through that society.”
In our society, that could indicate the effects of political austerity measures, including the latest benefit cuts. On a global level, it could point to the people in the world’s poorest nations whose crops are being destroyed by the climate crisis. Hunger affects the powerless.
In Plymouth city centre on Mothering Sunday, March 30, a table laid with empty plates and a group of women on a 24-hour hunger strike represented a campaign calling for multiple actions to end food insecurity.
The ‘inequality’ quote above comes from a policy document produced by the Mothers’ Manifesto, a movement which believes systemic change on many different levels is urgently needed. It organised a national protest on the day that traditionally celebrates a mother’s role in providing for her children, focusing attention on those who cannot do so. There were six regional actions around the UK, including the one in Plymouth, along with a protest outside Parliament where a group of women went on hunger strike for five days, while urging MPs to support the campaign.
The policy document, called the Pink Paper, joins the dots along the ‘fault lines of inequality’: the struggle of low-income families to put meals on the table, the big players in the food (and ultra-processed food) production industry, the government’s cuts to overseas aid, and the fossil fuel companies that profit from environmental destruction.
The Pink Paper states: “Central to our demands is the understanding that our current food system, in the UK and globally, is systematically damaging the health of the planet as well as the health of human populations.
“The way we farm and produce food is depleting biodiversity, polluting waterways, degrading the soil and driving climate change.
“In the UK, the diminishing quality of our diets is negatively impacting our children’s well-being and life prospects, and putting a huge burden on the NHS and our economy.
“The food system as a whole urgently needs to be transformed in order to restore our environment and safeguard the lives of the younger generations.
“Our demands concentrate on areas that we believe will have the most impact. In the UK, they are focused on social security, meals in schools, land use, and public information. In terms of global policy, we are calling for action on the climate crisis, the UK’s overseas aid budget, the debt burden and access to food in conflict areas.”
An issue close to home for Plymouth residents
Not surprisingly, on the streets of Plymouth, the immediate issue of household income was foremost in people’s minds. According to data from the Office for National Statistics and the Department for Work and Pensions, around 30 per cent of children in the city are living in poverty, with an even higher proportion in particularly deprived areas.
Rachel Ward Lilley was one of the campaigners and hunger strikers at the Plymouth protest, staged at the Sundial in the city centre. The group – which included men – gave out information material and stickers, and invited visitors to make hand-crafted heart shapes, dedicated to a child in their own lives or in a troubled part of the world.
“It was very emotional,” she said. “We had some really good conversations with people. Where we were in Plymouth, quite a lot of people had themselves suffered as a child, they had come from a place of poverty and it’s still the same, it’s very difficult to get out of it.
“It comes down to the super-rich and the super-poor, the real contrast, and the inequality that’s going on at the moment.
“One person said, ‘you wouldn’t believe we were a rich country if you looked around’ – people are very much living in their bubbles.”
She said many people were deeply worried about the latest benefit cuts, with comments such as “where will it stop – can it get any worse?”
“We had some interesting conversations about the hunger strike, especially when we put it in the context that people in London were doing it for five days. People said it showed a commitment, and they thanked us for raising the issue. We had people asking what they could do in support, and we told them to write to their MP.”
Getting MPs behind the campaign is a key aim of the Mothers’ Manifesto movement. They plan to take their policy document to Parliament later this year, supported by other organisations with similar aims.
Their Pink Paper manifesto says: “Hunger is always a political choice. But extraordinary transformations can happen when governments align with a commitment to save and improve lives.”
For more information, and to support the campaign, visit www.mothermanifesto.com
