The Right to Not be Poor. New Publication
|
Published on Tue, 2007-03-20 12:12
From the human rights perspective, poverty constitutes a multiple violation of human beings' fundamental rights and above all a violation of the right to lead a decent life as is laid down in international human rights agreements. The Social Watch published this Occasional Paper with the aim of exploring this relation and contributing to a greater understanding of it. This involves questioning the traditional approach that regards people in general and people living in poverty in particular merely as the "beneficiaries" or the "object" of policies and programmes. In this way, poverty- related issues are viewed from the perspective of the exercise of human rights, demonstrating the inalienability of the right to not be poor, which goes beyond the political will of governments. The various articles included here represent the opinions of individuals andnetworks that have been working for years to defend and promote respect forhuman rights. This booklet is a collection of articles by the Social Watch ResearchTeam, Equipo Pueblo (the Social Watch focal point in Mexico), Dignity International,ESCR-Net, Provea Venezuela, and the Red de Educación Popular entre Mujeres,which are all organizations that Social Watch has cooperated with to organizemeetings, workshops and courses on the subject of human rights. The main idea behind this booklet grew out of a discussion that took place at aworkshop on “Poverty and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights”, on 27 January2006 in Caracas, during the 2006 World Social Forum. We would like to thank allthe participants in that workshop who contributed to the ideas set out here. Our aim is to go deeper, to analyze and debate the connection between povertyand human rights in pursuit of conceptualizations that will reinforce our day today work of lobbying and trying to influence the policies that governmentsimplement to eradicate poverty and promote respect for human rights. Social Watch Research Team Occasional Paper Nº 5 The Right to Not be Poor (PDF version) |
