Poverty: an obstacle to human rights

It knows no geographical boundaries, spreads over all continents and is present in both industrialized and developing countries, though to differing extents. It causes inadequate standards of living, weak health, hunger, unsanitary housing, homelessness, unemployment, social exclusion and illiteracy. It cripples the lives of some 1.5 billion people, whose number is rising by at least 25 million a year. The majority are women, children and the elderly. The 1995 World Health Report: Bridging the Gaps found it to be the world's most ruthless killer and the greatest cause of suffering on earth: extreme poverty.

At the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights, it was affirmed that extreme poverty and social exclusion constitute a violation of human dignity. At other recent United Nations global conferences, especially the1995 World Summit for Social Development, held in Copenhagen, the international community committed itself to devising policies, strategies and concrete action aimed at the eradication of poverty. The Copenhagen Declaration reaffirmed that the right to development, which implies an ultimate eradication of poverty, is a fundamental human right.

The International Decade for the Eradication of Poverty (1997-2006) has been proclaimed by the United Nations. The special theme chosen for 1998, within the context of the Decade and the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is "Poverty, human rights and development".

People who live in poverty generally describe it as a vicious circle, since they are confronted by a wide range of misfortunes which are interlinked and hard to overcome. Indeed, being deprived of resources makes it impossible for anyone to afford the most basic human needs or to enjoy the most fundamental human rights specified in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, such as the right to housing, to a decent standard of living, to education, to health, to work, to life, and to participate in social, cultural, civil and political life, among others. Living in poverty involves the denial of human rights as a whole. This clearly illustrates the importance given to the principles of interdependence and indivisibility in various human rights instruments. Establishing a connection between democracy, development and human rights requires that all human rights are viewed as universal, indivisible and interdependent.

According to the World Health Organization report, poverty is the main reason why:

* Babies are not vaccinated. The Progress of Nations 1998, a publication of UNICEF, states that every year two million children still dying from a lack of the basic vaccines available against the six major child-killing diseases could be saved.

* Clean water and sanitation are not accessible. Every year, 3 million children in developing countries die for lack of clean water; of the 4.4 billion people in developing countries, nearly three fifths lack basic sanitation and almost a third do not have access to clean water.

* Curative drugs and other treatments are unavailable.

* Mothers die in childbirth. Each year, nearly 600,000 women die worldwide from pregnancy-related causes.

Poverty is also the main cause of:

* reduced life expectancy ‹ according to the Human Development Report 1998, nearly 200 million people in rich nations are not expected to survive to age 60; for example, because of social and economic upheavals in Russia, male life expectancy is down by more than five years since 1989.

* handicap and disability and

* starvation.

It is also a major contributor to mental illness, stress, suicide, family disintegration and substance abuse.

Leandro Despouy, Special Rapporteur on human rights and extreme poverty, stated when reporting on this appalling situation in 1996: "This is an age of unprecedented contrasts. On the one hand there are people lapping up the wonders of technological progress, culture, the information revolution, and the thrilling promises of the space age. On the other, there are vast numbers leading lives of indigence, adversity and neglect. For one part of mankind, change is gathering pace; for the other, it is marking time or losing ground. This fateful decline lies at the root of the most disturbing knowledge in our possession: for what matters most is not that those who are progressing are few, or may be becoming fewer by the day, but that every day more people fall behind, and do so with terrifying speed."

Even though the globalization of the world economy has provided new opportunities for all countries, many countries that are not able to compete are being left behind and marginalized, thus exacerbating poverty. United Nations agencies, governments and the civil society are trying to correct this situation by reaching the poorest in designing, implementing and evaluating programmes to alleviate their condition ‹ thus adopting a human rights-based approach to poverty. This participatory approach has emphasized the involvement of the poor themselves, and the importance of human relations. Kofi Annan, UN Secretary-General, sent a hopeful message on the occasion of the launch of the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty (1996), when he stated "To those in poverty ... weare listening. We ask you to tell us how we can work to meet your aspirations; not for you, but with you."

At the last session of the Commission on Human Rights, an independent expert was appointed to address the question of human rights and extreme poverty. Her main tasks, among others, are to:

* evaluate the relationship between the promotion and protection of human rights and extreme poverty, including through the assessment of measures taken at the national and international levels to promote the full enjoyment of human rights by persons living in extreme poverty;

* take into account the obstacles encountered and progress made by women living in extreme poverty, as regards the enjoyment of their fundamental rights;

* contribute to the UN General Assembly's five-year evaluation in the year 2000 of the World Summit on Social Development, by preparing a final report and conclusions devoted to that evaluation;

* make suggestions to the Commission on Human Rights for a possible draft declaration on human rights and extreme poverty.

According to the Special Rapporteur on human rights and extreme poverty, the fight to eradicate poverty requires not only detailed knowledge of the causes and factors which give rise to, aggravate and perpetuate it, but also of its impact on human rights and fundamental freedoms as a whole. "It is essential to set in motion machinery for participation which involves the poorest at every stage of the policies devised to help them", he said. "Only thus can concrete and lasting results be achieved. Only as they rediscover their full range of rights and freedoms shall we see emerging in all their splendour the human beings behind the poverty-scarred faces."

[Published by the United Nations Department of Public Information DPI/2015, October 1998]