Human Rights and Poverty

‘MAN is born free; and everywhere he is in chains. One thinks himself the master of others, and still remains a greater slave than they’
Jean Jacques Rousseau 1762

It was the Iranians, through Cyrus the Great, who gave us our first universal declaration of Human Rights in the 6th Century BC. Since then we have been trying through a range of religious and legal texts to ‘hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness’. This struggle for Human Rights gave birth to a republican revolution that swept across Europe and North America. Yet despite this revolution the world is still impoverished with slavery, oppression, ill health, war and disease.

In 1945, as a consequence of two world wars, the United Nations was established in San Francisco. The Aims of the United Nations are:
To keep peace throughout the world.
To develop friendly relations between nations.
To work together to help people live better lives, to eliminate poverty, disease and illiteracy in the world, to stop environmental destruction and to encourage respect for each other's rights and freedoms.
To be a centre for helping nations achieve these aims.
As part of this work the UN has declared 10 December Human Rights Day and has identified poverty as a cause and a product of human rights violations.
According to the UN, poverty ‘is probably the gravest human rights challenge in the world. Yet, poverty is still rarely seen through the lens of human rights. Many ingredients go into making poverty, but factors like discrimination, unequal access to resources, and social and cultural stigmatization have always characterized it. These “factors” have another name: the denial of human rights and human dignity’. With such a denial how shall we overcome local and global poverty? Can we, as a Human Race, ever surmount such a challenge? If so, what factors should we overcome in our pursuit of Peace, Health and Happiness? This concept may be too difficult for many to realise.

If we are to see poverty ‘through the lens of human rights’ we need to make it and its relationship with Human Rights applicable to all. For those trying to overcome poverty the determinants are obvious: Geography, Demography, Crime and Justice, Deprivation, Education, Employment and Economic Activity, Health and Care, Housing and Transport. If we are to finish the work of Cyrus and end slavery, oppression, ill health, war, and disease we need to eradicate poverty from all forms of human relations. Only then will we be born free, and nowhere in chains, of poverty. For the UN’s Human Rights Day to have a major impact we all need to work as one, individual, community, governments and societies, to realise our commonality: Master of none, but brothers, sisters, fathers and mothers, daughters and sons striving for ‘Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness’

Seán Brennan is the Development Officer for the Edward de Bono Foundation NI and works in partnership with Intercomm’s Developing Leadership Initiative CEP in North Belfast’s Interface Communiites.