Poverty and Human Rights Violations Are Two Sides of the Same Coin

The biggest moral scandal of our time is the fact that these poverty- related human rights violations are preventable.  The numbers show that just 1 percent of the national incomes of rich countries would adequately address the global problem of severe poverty.  Yet despite this, increasing the quality (which includes the notion of untied aid) and quantity of aid for OECD countries remain problematic. With the current global economic meltdown, aid levels are expected to further decline.

However, poverty reduction is not just a technocratic quick fix of matching resources where they exist, to countries where these are needed. To fall into this trap is reminiscent of another approach to poverty reduction—quite popular with the main producer of poverty knowledge today, the World Bank--  that treats descriptive features of individuals or households ‘as if these were causes of poverty in and of themselves’.   Is lack of education the cause of poverty, or is it an outcome? The same can be asked of ill-health, and other such types of indicators. The problem with this approach is that it is devoid of context, bereft of any discussion on social relations and structural dimensions, which have the effect of de-politicizing the issue of poverty.  

This rings true in much of the discourse on Official Development Assistance where appeals to increase aid largely rely on ‘enlightened self-interest’ or the ‘social conscience’ or ‘moral duty’ of OECD countries. But as social and citizens movements like the Jubilee South and GCAP point out, ‘justice and reparations should be the starting point of aid’ since  the impoverishment of most developing countries has been the result of colonization, and the  current unequal economic and political relations as expressed in the areas of debt, trade and aid. These groups assert that rich countries must acknowledge the bigger part of the blame, and take on increased responsibility to address poverty and inequality in the world today.

Nora Protacio, an urban poor leader in GCAP-Philippines, points out, ‘the irony is that oftentimes, those who are sworn to uphold human rights are the very first to violate it.’ She cites the example where Filipino women  have limited access to reproductive health information, and services, resulting in alarmingly high levels of maternal mortality rates, because the national government continues to buckle to the pressures of the powerful Catholic church. Protacio and her organization Piglas Kababaihan are among those actively campaigning for the passage of the Reproductive Health bill, now being deliberated in the Philippine Congress.

Pendatun Disimban, a GCAP muslim leader decries the on-going war between the government and Muslim groups in parts of Mindanao, a southern island in the Philippines, resulting in the uprooting of hundreds of thousands of families from their homes and livelihoods, and their children’ right to be in school violated. Today, Disimban’s organization, the Assalam Bangsa Moro People’s Association, have joined the growing people’s clamor for a ceasefire and the conduct of peaceful negotiations without pre-conditions. Disimban  further articulates that the  recognition of his people’s right to self-determination need to be genuinely upheld.

Indeed, poverty and human rights violation are two sides of the same coin. For as long as the structures and social relations that perpetuate poverty are not addressed internationally and at the level of the nation, then the realization of human rights will continue to be an aspiration desperately hoped and fought for by many.

Written by Marivic Raquiza - GCAP Philippines