PHM-Exch> The Unheard Truth: Poverty and Human Rights:

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: Ruggiero, Mrs. Ana Lucia (WDC) <ruglucia at paho.org>
crossposted from: EQUIDAD at listserv.paho.org


 *The Unheard Truth: Poverty and Human Rights

*

*Irene Khan - Amnesty International Secretary General – 2009

*

Website: http://www.theunheardtruth.com/



“……In a bracing argument enriched by compelling photographs from across the
world, Amnesty International Secretary General Irene Khan makes the case
that poverty remains a global epidemic because we continue to define it as
an economic problem. The book calls for a re-evaluation of this
long-standing assumption and turns us toward confronting poverty as a global
human-rights violation…..”

 “…….Ending poverty has become the rallying cry of international
organizations, political and business leaders, philanthropists and rock
stars. But it is almost certainly doomed to fail if it is driven solely by
the imperative of boosting economic growth through investment, trade, new
technology or foreign aid, claims Irene Khan in the Unheard Truth.

 Khan argues with passion, backed up by analysis, that fighting poverty is
about fighting deprivation, exclusion, insecurity and powerlessness. People
living in poverty lack material resources but that more than that, they lack
control over their own lives. To tackle global poverty, we need to focus on
the human rights abuses that drive poverty and keep people poor. Giving
people a say in their own future, and demanding that they be treated with
dignity and respect for their rights is the way to make progress.

 Through personal reflection and case-studies, Khan shows why poverty is
first and foremost not a problem of economics but of human rights. As the
numbers of people living in poverty swell to upwards of 2 billion, she
argues that poverty is the world's worst human rights crisis. Slums are
growing at an alarming rate condemning a billion people to live in dismal
condition and with the constant threat of forced eviction, the commodity
boom is pushing oil and mining activities into lawless zones impoverishing
hundreds and thousands of people, and more than half a million women are
dying every year due to complications related to pregnancy and childbirth,
99% of these are in the developing world, because of discrimination and
denial of essential health care.

 By raising the issue of rights, the Unheard Truth is not pointing fingers
but providing a formula for sustainable and equitable solutions, and giving
people the means to change the power imbalance that keeps them poor….” (au)
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