Poverty and Human Rights

What's poverty got to do with human rights?

• 840 million people are chronically malnourished.
  
• 100 million have no access to education.
  
• 11 million children die before the age of five every year.

This suffering should be no more inevitable than torture, false imprisonment or censorship. The right to live in dignity, with access to health care, education, secure housing and an adequate livelihood is fundamental.

We want:

• to highlight the way that poverty and human rights violations often go hand in hand
• to empower and support those who have their rights violated
• to hold those responsible to account.

Ending the human rights abuses that keep people poor

What are economic, social and cultural rights?

These cover a range of human rights, including:

• the right to work and to fair and just conditions of employment
• the right to form trade unions
• the right to a standard of life adequate for well-being - including food, clothing, housing and healthcare
• the right to education which shall be free and compulsory in elementary stages
• the right to participate in cultural and scientific life

These rights are stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) along with the principle that human rights are 'indivisible' and 'universal'.  This means that all human rights are connected and should all be enjoyed by everyone irrespective of gender, ethnicity, colour, religion, physical and mental capability.

For example, how can you protect the right to life without ensuring people the right to health care? How can you enjoy the right to free expression or mental integrity without access to education? Ultimately, you cannot ensure freedom from fear without freedom from want.

Millennium Development Goals

Watch Nobel Peace Prize Winner Wangari Maathai on why it is important to keep human rights at the heart of the Millennium Development Goal: