Three billion people do it. But what does it really mean to live on the margins of life? Here we take a look at the factors that can throw people deeper and deeper into a life of poverty.
Injustice
If your landlord can evict you or your employer can sack you at the drop of a hat, you have no certainty of income. A weak justice system might mean you have no recourse. And what answer is there when the inequalities of international trade cause a massive influx of cheap goods from overseas, making yours impossible to sell?
Or to centuries of cultural injustice – as with India’s dalits, who in many rural areas are forced by the caste system to drink from separate tea glasses in their local café? In a world of growing inequality, injustice pushes down those struggling the hardest.
Disasters
In a matter of minutes, your house is gone – swept away in a tsunami or flood, or reduced to rubble by an earthquake. Your crops may wither year after year, the victim of drought or climate change. If you are poor, these disasters hit you the hardest.
In 2005, an estimated 100,000 people died in disasters globally, according to the World Health Organisation. And it’s getting worse. From 1995 to 2004, the number of disasters almost doubled, from 419 to 719.
Conflict
Across the Darfur region of Sudan – an area the size of western Europe – the signs of conflict are clear. It’s a barren landscape, scarred by the scorched remains of villages and fields. More than 200,000 people have died because of fighting between rebel groups and the Janjaweed, a militia backed by the Sudanese government.
More than two million people here have been forced to flee their homes. They cannot cultivate their fields or work, and conflict pushes them into sprawling camps, dependent on aid to keep them alive.
Women and power
At the bottom of the heap are women and girls. If a family’s husband drinks, and the children have to be fed, the wife may be forced to go out to work as a sex worker. If girls are family ‘assets’, they are married off young. ‘Getting married meant dropping out of school,’ says Najibe Sogheri, an Afghan girl married at 13. She is now 14 and still wants to be educated. But like millions of others, it looks like she won’t get that chance.
Life without the basics
Lacking the most basic essentials – water, a balanced diet, education, health care, transport – fundamentally undermines people’s ability to live life in dignity and security. Without clean water, children fall ill and parents can’t pay for medical care.
Without transport, farmers can’t get their goods to market. As income falls, there’s not enough money to buy food. Children become malnourished and their growth stunted. And without savings, there’s nothing to fall back on. How does a family make its way back from such extreme poverty?
What you can do
Christian Aid funds projects that deal with all these issues. Your donations help fund this work and your campaigning helps us challenge the policies that keep poor people poor.