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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><font face="Times New Roman">Human Rights Reader 216</font></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt">SICK, UNDERFED, UNDERPAID, DISCRIMINATED AND OVERLOOKED, THE EXCLUDED ARE AT THE CENTER OF HUMAN RIGHTS WORK.</span></b><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"> </span></font></p>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Human rights work is about first greatly </font></span></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>reducing --and then putting an end--</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>to the dynamics of exclusion.</font></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt">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 --<u>not</u> by a ‘regrettable oversight’-- prevents marginalized people’s true participation:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We thus have to forcefully fight the ‘misfortune’ attitude we too often see towards HR violations. </span><font size="3">(A. Shukla)<span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: blue"></span></font></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman">Existing programs are simply not targeting specific groups to fight poverty using the ultimate bottom-line process, i.e.,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>one that includes real income <u>transfers* <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">and</i> the reversion of multiple human rights (HR) violations.</u> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman">*: 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)</font></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman">2. Social cohesion (and the fulfillment of HR) can only be achieved if governments pursue policies which 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.</font></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman">3. In this context, it is <u>not</u> 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. </font></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-INDENT: -0.5in"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>4. Incidentally, in HR work, we actually prefer to speak about <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">people-that-happen-to-be poor</b> to emphasize the fact that it is ongoing-social-and-political-processes that create and perpetuate poverty… as a very central HR violation. </font></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt">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. </span><font size="3">(P. Alston)<span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"></span></font></font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt">6. Furthermore, among us-the-richer, ‘liberals’ stand for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">giving opportunities</i> to achieve potential greater equity**. ‘Socialists’, on the other hand, stand for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">achieving outcomes and results</i> to achieve greater equity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>HR work is <u>more about the second***. </u></span><font size="3"><u>(U. Jonsson)</u><u><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"></span></u></font></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman">**: <span style="COLOR: black">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'.</span></font></span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"> </span><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt; COLOR: black">(U. Jonsson)</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman">***: For us, <span style="COLOR: black">'equity' is an ethical concept, based on what is called the 'principle of distributive justice'. We therefore are more for achieving outcomes and results.</span></font></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><a name="OLE_LINK2"></a><a name="OLE_LINK1"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2"><span lang="IT" style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: IT"><font face="Times New Roman">Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City</font></span></span></a></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2"></span></span><a href="mailto:cschuftan@phmovement.org"><font color="#0000ff"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt">cschuftan@phmovement.org</span></span></span><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2"></span></span></font></font></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><font face="Times New Roman"> </font></span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 8pt"><font face="Times New Roman">[All Readers can be found in </font></span></span></span><a href="http://www.humaninfo.org/aviva%20%20under%20No.%2069"><font color="#0000ff"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 8pt">www.humaninfo.org/aviva</span></span></span><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2"></span></span></font></font></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 8pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>under No. 69] <span style="COLOR: red"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></font></span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 8pt"><font face="Times New Roman">_______________</font></span></span></span></p>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><font face="Times New Roman">Partly adapted from</font></span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"> </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><font face="Times New Roman">D+C, Vol.35, No.4, April 2008, Five Germanys I have known, F. Stern, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, New York, 2006, and SCN News, No.36, Geneva, mid-2008.</font></span></div>
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