Thursday was the national day of demonstrations against benefit sanctions organised by Unite Community.

In Tameside, my fellow campaigners and I have been demonstrating every week since August.

August was the turning point for us, we saw how inhumane these sanctions were and we were determined to do something about it.

Sanctioning a pregnant woman for no legal reason and then saying, when she asked how she would feed her unborn baby, “tough you’re not ill, you are pregnant — get on with it” still haunts me.

Without the help that she got both her and her unborn baby could have been yet another statistic for this government to use in its “return to work” statistics.

Make no mistake the jobcentres aren’t there to find you work any more.

Unlike the old days they are now used to take people off the unemployment register in any way possible. It doesn’t matter how.

Then this cruel government can claim that the unemployment figures are down.

The truth of the matter is that they aren’t down — they are higher than ever. People forced onto workfare or the work programme are taken off the unemployment figures and the companies concerned get a nice sum of money for this service.

Workfare is another evil. It takes away paid employment and replaces a fully paid job with someone working for free.

It makes false promises of “you might get a job at the end of it,” but such outcome is very rare.

Why? It’s simple — why pay someone when you can get someone to work for nothing.

A few people go into these workfare positions with hope but that soon evaporates when they realise that they have being used.

Does it make them feel angry? Yes it does and they are right to be angry.

Does it make them feel like giving up? Yes it does. You lose all self-esteem. You know that you are being used. On top of it the jobcentre blames you for not getting paid employment — even though it’s not your fault.

You did your best to find employment but its intention was to never offer you one. The jobcentre then punishes you with attending the work programme run by a company that receives a large amount of money for your attendance.

The longer you are there the more money it gets. When you don’t find employment through it, the jobcentre will then put you on a gruelling, punishing regime of daily signing-on appointments.

An intelligent young man I spoke to yesterday who had always had a very good job said: “I’m angry because it is treating me like an idiot. It wants me to do things that I am overqualified for. It’s so frustrating.” It wants you to be completely controlled by the jobcentre in such a way that your life isn’t your own anymore.

Another young girl the same age as my daughter came over to chat with me with her boyfriend. They’ve had no money since November and are relying on the one homeless facility for food. They looked so thin and sad.

They are only starting their lives and it shouldn’t be like this. I really hope that we can help them in some way. I have to be positive. We can’t give up hope.

We also had some very bad news. The police community support officer (PCSO) who we talk to on a regular basis had just got back from an incident where a man had tried to hang himself.

The man attended Ashton jobcentre and we probably know him. The PCSOs aren’t allowed to say much but you could see the shock in their eyes.

We hope that he recovers — it has really upset us all. Will the jobcentre take responsibility for this? No, it won’t — of course — it’s only doing its jobs.

It was very uplifting to see all the demonstrations up and down the country yesterday. We now know that people are in solidarity with us.

For a long time we have felt alone in our quest to highlight how wrong sanctions are.

I heard a comment yesterday that someone was disheartened because lots of people didn’t turn up. We don’t get lots of people except on special demonstration days that I organise.

But it’s not about numbers it’s about quality. About you being there showing support to the claimants inside the jobcentre.
It gives them hope to know there is someone outside that cares — it keeps them going. Even if it’s just one person protesting it’s enough. Never give up, the longer you stay the more people will join.

Why is this so important to me and my group? Because sanctions are wrong and I personally aim to change that. We have put pressure on them to change this and we are making a big difference.

But we are no threat, we are peaceful.

Many, many thanks to everyone up and down the country for showing solidarity with us. Many, many thanks to Unite in the Community for arranging this day of action. My union representative a lovely chap said: “I don’t know how you do this every week.” I replied because we have to.

We’ve got to make a change. It’s become part of our lives — a part of our lives that we are very proud of.

- Charlotte Hughes blogs at thepoorsideoflife.wordpress.com.