"The voices are not heard" by Bella

In the gray outskirts of London, Bella pushes an empty stroller that carries only the sound of hunger. Three children wait at home, their stomachs echoing louder than the sirens outside. Near the supermarket, she hides a loaf of bread beneath a blanket, beside a trash bin that smells of yesterday’s meals. A passerby glances with pity, but pity does not feed a child.

Her daughter Lou, deaf and delicate, eats quietly on a park bench. The bread tastes like warmth. The world reflected in her still eyes is beautiful — not because it is kind, but because she still believes it could be.

Jota, Bella’s husband, counts the coins and says “Wait two more days, till payday.” Two days feel like an eternity. They live under the gaze of the Welfare Bureau — parents marked by poverty, their files thick with suspicion. When Lou falls and bruises her arm, a broken hearing aid beside her, the Bureau calls it neglect. Papers are signed. Children are taken.

The voices of the poor are not heard.When Bella screams for her daughter, a welfare officer notes, “displayed aggression.”When Lou signs, “I want to go home,” her hands are stopped — she is told to speak English, so her grief can be monitored.When Jota kneels in silence, no one writes that down. Silence is not evidence.

The voices of the poor are not heard.They are transcribed into case reports, translated into codes, filed under “high risk.”

Anne Payne, a woman who once worked within the same system, takes pity — or perhaps guilt — and offers to help. She whispers of escape, of crossing borders, of stealing back their children before the state erases them completely.

For Bella and Jota, love has become an act of rebellion. They have nothing left to lose except the right to be a family.