Food for a thought beyond survival
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Human Rights Reader 87
EXCUSE THE REDUNDANCY, BUT THE POOR ARE A MAJORITY: HOW DOES
THIS MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN OUR STRATEGIES AND OUR EVERYDAY WORK?
1. Processes are occurring every day that make people poor. So,
it is legitimate to ask: Where is the end of 'survival' and
where the beginning of 'living'?
2. Being poor, changes people's incentives and the set of con-
straints under which they operate; it results in a prolonged
sense of helplessness.
3. The bare fact is that poor people are excluded from their
share in the wealth they help to create. That is why the distri-
bution of wealth is as important (if not more) as its creation.
4. Because individuals experience poverty and the violation of
their rights differently --according to their gender, age,
caste, class and ethnicity-- injustice has to be seen through
the eyes of 'those-who-are-farthest-behind-on- the-road' in all
of those categories. (Halfdan Mahler)
5. Some are of the opinion that poverty is a rather static con-
cept; they prefer using the concept of vulnerability which, they
say, is more dynamic and is also found at individual, household
and community level.
6. Furthermore, poverty and inequality are actually a source of
economic inefficiency since both waste human potential.
7. For us in human (people's) rights (HR) work, poverty is re-
lated not only to its economic aspects, but is multi-
dimensional. It is related to powerlessness, to not-being-
counted, to not-being-considered, to being-excluded, to being-
unheard. Poverty is related to exploitation, oppression, vic-
timization and violence. It is also related to migration, forced
displacement, rising urbanization and loss of livelihoods. (Fi-
nal AIFO Document)
8. As regards health, in our societies, much of health has be-
come a 'medical- repair-industry' of the damage-done-by-poverty
(H. Mahler); this so much so that, in fact, WHO has created a
new category of disease actually called "Extreme Poverty" (ICD
10, No. Z 59.5).
9. A sustainable approach to poverty reduction is complex and
requires that three types of measures be taken to ensure: a)
that the improving poor continue to improve; b) that the coping
poor graduate out of their precarious state; and c) that the de-
clining poor have an opportunity to reverse their condition. (U.
Narayan)
10. Poverty being forced on individuals and families who do not
have any other choice is unequivocally linked to injustice --and
potentially to rebellion. It represents a-denial-of-human-
rights-on-a massive-scale. Should this fact not make a differ-
ence in (y)our everyday work?
--
Claudio Schuftan
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
mailto:claudio@hcmc.netnam.vn
--
Mostly taken from Poverty, Health and Development, Health Coop-
eration Papers No.17, AIFO, Bologna, Italy, 2003