Human rights work is about first greatly reducing –and then putting an end –to the dynamics of exclusion.
1. In human rights work, we see exclusion as no longer being the problem only of particular segregated groups, but as a man-made mechanism that in many varied ways negatively affects the entire population living below the poverty line. This, since large sections of this population –some more some less– are constantly being put at a disadvantage by both formal and informal processes. For example, the media do not report their views, and their organizations do not really have voice in the everyday polity. In short, in most of our societies, social interactions are organized in a way that –not by a ‘regrettable oversight’– prevents marginalized people’s true participation: We thus have to forcefully fight the ‘misfortune’ attitude we too often see towards HR violations. (Abhay Shukla)
Existing programs are simply not targeting specific groups to fight poverty using the ultimate bottom-line process, i.e., one that includes real income transfers* and the reversion of multiple human rights (HR) violations.
*: Mind you, many existing transfer programs do attempt to boost incomes, but HR violations and the forces perpetuating exclusion stay in place: We thus have to become intolerant of exclusion. (L. Ramalho)
2. Social cohesion (and the fulfillment of HR) can only be achieved if governments pursue policies that promote social inclusion, and if they do so, it must be with broad popular support. Such support has to become evident through across-the-board increases in the trust in public institutions and services, in a growing mutual sense of belonging in society and in the rapid acceptance of HR-based social norms.
3. In this context, it is not policy makers who have to give disadvantaged and excluded groups influence: the latter have to empower themselves and take their fate into their own hands by staging collective actions and placing concrete demands. Ergo, importantly, HR work is about providing access to new avenues of change, to needed political involvement and to politically effective self-organization.
4. Incidentally, in HR work, we actually prefer to speak about people-that-happen-to-be poor to emphasize the fact that it is ongoing-social-and-political-processes that create and perpetuate poverty… as a very central HR violation.
5. We have to always keep in mind two things: a) that people-that-happen-to-be-poor live in a harsh reality and not in the reality we place them in (…and, further, what we too often see are “rich men’s prescriptions” for the poor), and b) that there is no such an explicit thing as a right-to-complain-about-being-poor. (P. Alston)
6. Furthermore, among us-the-richer, ‘liberals’ stand for giving opportunities to achieve potential greater equity**. ‘Socialists’, on the other hand, stand for achieving outcomes and results to achieve greater equity. HR work is more about the second***. (Urban Jonsson)
**: For them, ‘equitable distribution of wealth’ accepts and defends the fact that some are much richer than others, somehow because ‘they are worth it and/or deserve it’. (U. Jonsson)
***: For us, ‘equity’ is an ethical concept, based on what is called the ‘principle of distributive justice’. We therefore are more for achieving outcomes and results.
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City
cschuftan@phmovement.org