Statement on UK Prisons Being Used in War Effort

It has been brought to our attention by someone currently incarcerated that British

prisons will be producing more equipment for the Ministry of Defence.

Prisoners will be making items such as camouflage nets, metal posts, and picket

drivers for use by the armed forces.

The new plan was created in the context of the UK increasing its military budget. As

well as in response to the criticism that too many prisoners spend their days in their

cells due to a lack of places in work and education.

As a pacifist organisation, we stand against militarism in all its forms and condemn its

encroachment into any institution.

Prisoners are some of the most vulnerable people in society and deserve access to

academic study and meaningful labour as much as any other group. We condemn that

they are instead being pushed into facilitating the military-industrial complex.

We pray that all prisoners will be made aware of the final destination of the products

they are making, and thus given the dignity of choice.

We pray that no prisoner will be penalised for refusing this work, even if the penalty

consists of being denied any other opportunity for stimulation and activity.

We pray that those in power come to see the humanity of people who are incarcerated

and begin to listen to the needs and desires of individuals, rather than viewing them as

a cheap workforce.

Finally, we pray for the reunion of families separated by the carceral system, for

community healing, and that we may learn to solve conflicts, both at home and

abroad, without relying on state violence.

Refugees in Ethiopia: Hospitality and Hope Amidst Global Indifference

Brother Johannes Maertens of London Catholic Worker undertook a pilgrimage for a month to Ethiopia, where he visited Jesuit Refugee Services Ethiopia — this report bears witness to their work of hospitality and hope amidst hardship.

Refugees in Ethiopia: Hospitality and Hope Amidst Global Indifference

When I arrived at the Jesuit Refugee Services (JRS) office in Addis Ababa, welcomed by country manager Solomon Brahane, I was struck by its scale and vitality. Behind the large metal gate in a quiet residential area, the organisation has a welcoming community center that embodies hospitality, in a city with more than 75,000 refugees. JRS runs three Refugee Community Centres in the capital: two in the Kirkos district and one in Ayat, 28 kilometres away. These centres are warm welcoming places, filled with the chatter, children laughing, traditional dance, and music. In one centre, young women recorded their traditional dance on a phone in the courtyard, in a small room young men played drum, guitars and sang. In another center young boys played football in the courtyard.

Refugees in Ethiopia — Some Key Facts (2025)

Total refugees & asylum seekers: 1.09 million (1,015,800 refugees + 78,580 asylum seekers)

Main countries of origin:

•    South Sudan: 41%

•    Somalia: 33%

•    Eritrea: 17%

•    Sudan: 8%

Demographics: 

•    52% children (0–17 years)

•    45% adults (18–59 years)

•    3% elderly (60+)

•    77% women & children combined

Internally displaced persons (IDPs): 1.9 million, with an additional 2.8 million returnees

Urban refugees: About 8% live in cities such as Addis Ababa and Mekele

The Refugee Reality in Ethiopia

Ethiopia is the third-largest refugee-hosting country in Africa, with around one million refugees, most from neighbouring Eritrea, but also from Somalia, and South Sudan. Addis Ababa alone shelters thousands, though some refugees will move on to Uganda or further afield in search of freedom and opportunity. Like Europe, Ethiopia is a crossroads where displaced people seek not only safety but the chance to rebuild their lives.

Nearly half of Ethiopia’s population already lives below the poverty line. Conflict, inflation, and climate shocks have reversed years of progress, with poverty projected to reach 43% in 2025. Beyond income, 72% of Ethiopians face multidimensional poverty, lacking access to healthcare, education, and housing. Rural areas are hardest hit, but rising costs also strain urban families.

The JRS Refugee Community Centres respond with four main areas of work:

Child Protection

Child Protection Officers and psychologists care for traumatised children, train foster parents, and provide safeguarding. At times, up to 3,000 unaccompanied children have been in their care. Foster families, often refugees themselves, receive only a very modest stipend - barely enough for cooking oil - yet they volunteer out of care.

Mental Health and Psychosocial Support

Counselling, suicide prevention, and hospital referrals are offered, with volunteers accompanying patients even to psychiatric care.

Education and Livelihoods

Refugees learn languages, computer skills, and even university-level courses online. Vocational training ranges from hairdressing to solar panel installation, with partnerships through Don Bosco and religious sisters. Graduates are connected to employers, and microfinance loans help launch small businesses.

Reconciliation and Peacebuilding

Dialogue sessions foster social cohesion between refugees and host communities, especially in resource-scarce regions near Somalia. Gender-based violence prevention and monthly interventions strengthen fragile bonds of trust. In 2024 alone, JRS Ethiopia reached 26,000 refugees across its centres. Outside the capital JRS works in Dollo Ado, Jijiga, and Shire, and accompanies refugees across the country with centres of education, protection, and peacebuilding.

The Shadow of International Aid Cuts

Yet this extraordinary work is imperilled. Cuts in international development budgets - particularly from western governments - have forced JRS to halve staff in some areas. International budget were terminated abruptly by the Trump administration, leaving volunteers and remaining staff to shoulder the burden. JRS USA stepped in with three months budget cover. These cuts mean fewer counsellors for traumatised children, fewer hands to accompany refugees in their struggle for dignity. As one person told me, “Budget cuts harm the most vulnerable in the world.” Cuts in development budgets in western countries mean cuts in real human lives and security.

Still, amidst this hardship, the staff remain resilient. At the main office, I saw them laughing over a game of pool during the lunch break - a small act of care for the carers. Their dedication rooted in faith and solidarity.

A Call to Solidarity

The witness of JRS Ethiopia is clear: accompaniment transforms lives. Refugees are not statistics but neighbours, children, and friends. Their laughter, their music, their resilience testify to the human spirit’s refusal to be crushed. As western governments retreat from their responsibilities, the question falls to us: will we stand with refugees in the world and with JRS Ethiopia? In Addis Ababa, I saw hope alive in the midst of hardship. That hope must not be abandoned.

The Mystery of the Poor

On Holy Thursday, truly a joyful day, I was sitting at the supper table at St. Joseph’s House on Chrystie Street and looking around at all the fellow workers and thinking how hopeless it was for us to try to keep up appearances. The walls are painted a warm yellow, the ceiling has been done by generous volunteers, and there are large, brightly colored ikon-like paintings on wood and some colorful banners with texts (now fading out) and the great crucifix brought in by some anonymous friend with the request that we hang it in the room where the breadline eats. (Some well-meaning guest tried to improve on the black iron by gilding it, and I always intend to do something about it and restore its former grim glory.)

The Christ of the Breadlines, Fritz Eichenberg

I looked around and the general appearance of the place was, as usual, home-like, informal, noisy, and comfortably warm on a cold evening. And yet, looked at with the eyes of a visitor, our place must look dingy indeed, filled as it always is with men and women, some children too, all of whom bear the unmistakable mark of misery and destitution. Aren’t we deceiving ourselves, I am sure many of them think, in the works we are doing? What are we accomplishing for them anyway, or for the world or for the common good? ‘Are these people being rehabilitated?’ is the question we get almost daily from visitors or from our readers (who seem to be great letter writers). One priest had his catechism classes write us questions as to our work after they had the assignment in religion class to read my book The Long Loneliness. The majority of them asked the same question: ‘How can you see Christ in people?’ And we only say: It is an act of faith, constantly repeated. It is an act of love, resulting from an act of faith. It is an act of hope, that we can awaken these same acts in their hearts, too, with the help of God, and the Works of Mercy, which you, our readers, help us to do, day in and day out over the years.

On Easter Day, on awakening late after the long midnight services in our parish church, I read over the last chapter of the four Gospels and felt that I had received great light and understanding with the reading of them. ‘They have taken the Lord out of His tomb and we do not know where they have laid Him,’ Mary Magdalene said, and we can say this with her in times of doubt and questioning. How do we know we believe? How do we know we indeed have faith? Because we have seen His hands and His feet in the poor around us. He has shown Himself to us in them. We start by loving them for Him, and we soon love them for themselves, each one a unique person, most special!

In that last glorious chapter of St. Luke, Jesus told His followers, ‘Why are you so perturbed? Why do questions arise in your minds? Look at My hands and My feet. It is I Myself. Touch Me and see. No ghost has flesh and bones as you can see I have.’ They were still unconvinced, for it seemed to good to be true. ‘So He asked them, “Have you anything to eat?” They offered Him a piece of fish they had cooked which He took and ate before their eyes.’

How can I help but think of these things every time I sit down at Chrystie Street or Peter Maurin Farm and look around at the tables filled with the unutterably poor who are going through their long-continuing crucifixion. It is most surely an exercise of faith for us to see Christ in each other. But it is through such exercise that we grow and the joy of our vocation assures us we are on the right path.

Most certainly, it is easier to believe now that the sun warms us, and we know that buds will appear on the sycamore trees in the wasteland across from the Catholic Worker office, that life will spring out of the dull clods of that littered park across the way. There are wars and rumors of war, poverty and plague, hunger and pain. Still, the sap is rising, again there is the resurrection of spring, God’s continuing promise to us that He is with us always, with His comfort and joy, if we will only ask.

The mystery of the poor is this: That they are Jesus, and what you do for them you do for Him. It is the only way we have of knowing and believing in our love. The mystery of poverty is that by sharing in it, making ourselves poor in giving to others, we increase our knowledge of and belief in love.

Dorothy Day