A sheet of paper for a bed

Many children are forced to live in slum conditions

An international child poverty conference takes place in London on Monday.

Linda, a 14-year-old from Angola, recounts her story of being forced by Unita rebels to abandon her home and flee with her family.

"You had to be careful what you said about them," Linda says of the rebels.

"If you said bad things, they would find out and come and beat you or even kill you," she said.

After walking for two weeks, at one point narrowly avoiding an ambush, they joined a displaced people's camp in the port city of Libito, where they have lived for the past year.

Linda's story reveals the real effects of deprivation as it continues to afflict the lives of children in developing countries.

We have to lay out pieces of paper on the ground and lie on them

Linda

She is far from happy.

The teenager, still living in miserable poverty where clean water is rare, makes do with "filthy rags" for clothes.

She describes an existence of appalling suffering: "We're all dirty. If you can find water it's never clean, and I don't sleep well here.

"We have to lay out pieces of paper on the ground and lie on them.

Little pay

"Sometimes we don't even have paper because rain comes in through our roof and everything gets soaked."

Linda's poverty has taken its toll on her education.

She used to study before she was driven from her home, but now most of her time is taken up preparing food, keeping the shelter clean and caring for her six brothers and sisters.

Other opportunities for self-improvement are few. Linda explains: "If you can find work, they hardly pay you anything.

"You can't afford clothes or shoes because they cost too much."

All Linda wants is a normal life, to live in a house in safety, but it is denied her.

Gloomy future

Clean water, clothes and somewhere to sleep, things so often taken for granted in developed countries, remain elusive for those children unfortunate enough to have been born in the wrong country at the wrong time.

Linda is pessimistic about her own future. "I'd like to go home but I don't think it's safe to go back yet.

"I think we will have to stay here a long time."

Linda's real name has been changed to protect her identity.