Church Action on Poverty recently accused the Government of using destitution as part of a deliberate strategy to force refused asylum seekers to leave the country.

People refused asylum in the UK often have no means to get back to their own countries, and, even as you read this, many are living rough on the streets of our towns and cities, simply abandoned by the state without food, shelter, money or even the right to help themselves by seeking paid employment.

Last weekend, towns, communities and churches held events to mark the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade and at the same time threw the spotlight on new forms of slavery present in the world today, including child labour and human trafficking.

Earlier in the month Blair even expressed "deep sorrow" for Britain's part in the slave trade, adding, "We are sorry".

It is remarkable that the Government can one day offer a sheepish 'sorry' for its part in the barbaric slave trade, while at the same time carrying out its strategy of deporting yet more refused asylum seekers back to the very homelands they fled from, very often in the face of conflict, widespread human rights abuses and loss of life.

Yet the inhumanity of such a strategy is not enough to disquiet the consciences of Prime Minister Tony Blair, Home Secretary John Reid and anyone else who acquiesces to Labour's get-tough policy on asylum seekers.

Earlier in the month, Mr Reid even boasted that the UK was now "throwing out" record numbers of what he called "foreigners [who] come to this country illegitimately and steal our benefits".

Asylum seekers are not criminals, they are people asking for help. And yet they are treated as worse than criminals. Not even our caught criminals are forced to sleep rough on the streets, but can enjoy a good night's sleep on a warm, clean prison bed and three hot meals during the day, take part in education classes, go out to the exercise yard or watch a bit of telly. Women inmates can even have their hair and nails done.

If we can take such good care of our criminals, if we are so concerned about respecting their human rights, then why is it that we can turn such a blind eye to the plight of asylum seekers on our own doorsteps and deny them the most basic rights that come from being made in the image of God - food, water, shelter?

What is even more remarkable than the Government's total lack of conscience is the fact that the consciences of the church and society also remain to an alarming extent unpricked by the plight of destitute asylum seekers. They might not be the ones packing the despairing men, women and children into the planes to be sent home but they are standing by and allowing it to continue by not speaking out.

The Government's strategy of destitution and deportation is not too far off in its vulgarity from human trafficking. But while that enjoys the public abhorrence of the Government, its deliberate policy of starving out refused asylum seekers remains a wholly institutionalised form of cruelty to our fellow human beings, tacitly consented to by the silence of the people.

There is a very touching moment in the film "Amazing Grace" when John Newton, the slave trader turned Christian, realises that the thousands of Africans he savagely traded and shipped across the Atlantic each had "beautiful African names".

Does the Labour Government know any of the names of the people it guiltlessly ships back to cruel and murderous regimes, or the refused asylum seekers who wander like ghosts through the UK's streets, penniless, helpless and hopeless? Does it care?

The slave trade has finally invoked the penitence from state and society that it deserves, thanks in large part to the church's drive to bring it to public attention.

Now the church must take up a new fight: the fight to see destitute asylum seekers treated as human beings in our country, with the right to paid employment so they can take care of themselves properly.

Asylum seekers do not come to this country to "steal our benefits". Our "benefits" are their rights. They come to our country to ask for the things they are entitled to as fellow human beings - food, water, shelter, clothing, medical care, life itself - because their own countries fail to provide them with these essentials.

They may not be fellow citizens but they are fellow human beings, they were made by God, they have names. The only qualification for food, for water, for shelter, is to be a human being. A person cannot steal what is already his. So, Mr Reid, who is stealing from whom?

"I tell you truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me." (NIV, Matthew 25:45)