The United Nations

“ All who live in extreme poverty have a right of access to culture and the arts. Special programmes affording access to culture, instruction, reading, art and literature and resource‐management and administration programmes should be set up in collaboration with, and with the active involvement of, the poor and their families as means of eradicating hardship. Cultural and instructive programmes, whether designed and executed by the State or by private entities, should seek to uphold the dignity of the poor, promote awareness of their rights, and accord due recognition to their experience. ”

“ Poverty is a flagrant violation of human dignity and yet so difficult for legislation to cover. Learning from the poorest what these violations may entail in order constantly to improve on necessarily inadequate legislation - this is the object of becoming acquainted with extreme poverty in order to protect human rights. ”

“ States should take action in every sphere to combat the feminization of poverty and ensure the participation of women in all their anti-poverty programmes. Every programme or piece of legislation aimed at eliminating extreme poverty should seek to take into account the different situations of women and men and to rectify inequalities between girls and boys and between women and men with regard to the use of resources, access to rights, the exercise of responsibilities and support for family life. ”

“ Human rights can never be reduced to a catalogue of demands. The right to responsibility, commitment and usefulness is a constituent element of dignity and therefore of human rights; any conception or implementation of human rights which fails to take account of the individual and his opportunities of and responsibility for fighting for others in his turn, runs the risk of betraying the expectations of the poor and excise an essential dimension from human rights. ”

“ After we have seen how human rights are violated by poverty, the question of indivisibility seems almost to be self-evident. It is obvious that poverty tortures the individual concerned both physically and spiritually, through the material and non-material conditions of his existence. It inspires him to resist in order to safeguard his dignity by all possible means. ”

“ International cooperation over basic human rights must be developed with a view to the full realization of those rights. States and the international community are under an obligation to act immediately to end situations of widespread poverty, starvation and hardship. In the case of long-standing situations of dire poverty and situations resulting from natural disasters, armed conflict, etc. which require States to make appropriate resources available at short notice it is not just the State that must take immediate action: the international community must also set up ad hoc programmes. ”

“ Human dignity is "untamable": the fact that it has its roots in the very essence of the human condition makes its codification difficult. One might be tempted to say that, by definition, it cannot be reduced to norms. It goes beyond human rights, once these have been defined, demarcated and contained in texts regulating human relations. The promotion of human rights can therefore take place in the international community only if awareness of them and their observance are nourished by a constantly-renewed identification of the demands of dignity, as the human environment evolves. ”

“ Discrimination against the poor based on their image, their dress, their physical appearance or any other grounds related to their situation of extreme poverty constitutes a human rights violation. The State, international agencies and other parties concerned have an obligation to criticize and combat stigmatization of the poor and to promote a balanced and fair image of persons who are in a situation of extreme poverty. ”

“ Can one talk of guaranteeing basic rights when those rights vanish as soon as a person is at risk of extreme dependence? Communication with the very poor and a determination to associate them with the promotion of human rights, both in their conception and in their implementation and its monitoring is already to put into practice the spirit of human rights, as is, as we have seen, the determination to comprehend the process of impoverishment and extreme poverty ”

“ On the matter of access to employment, the State and society must strive to abolish any form of discrimination based on external impressions, physical appearance, residence, living conditions, race, ethnic background, sex or any other consideration stemming from extreme poverty. Discrimination in employment on grounds relating to extreme poverty which are unrelated to good performance on the job should be duly penalized. ”

“ If a minimum content in the areas of economic, social and cultural rights were conceived as a group of fundamental rights simultaneously to be implemented whenever an individual, a family or a population group is threatened with poverty or social exclusion, so that they might be brought back into society with their heads held high, then such a minimum could be an instrument for promoting human rights. ”

“ The international community must accord due recognition to, back and finance voluntary work in support of the poor, especially efforts to combat poverty and establish, nationally, regionally and internationally, a climate of solidarity; it must encourage poor people’s organizations and social movements seeking to eradicate poverty with a view to the attainment of human rights. ”

“ The common experience shared by victims of human rights violations and men and women living in extreme poverty should make us appreciate how the poorest of the poor, in their situation of extreme dependence and weakness, strive to resist the destruction of their dignity and to be upholders of human rights, in their own situation and by their own means. ”

“ States should foster and promote participation by the poorest people in the decision‐making process in the societies in which they live, in the promotion of human rights and in efforts to combat extreme poverty. ”

“ Poverty is violence done on the bodies of the poorest whose only capital, as poor children, young people, women and men, is the physical strength they are obliged to live off from their earliest years (child labour, prostitution) , when they must use up their bodies, extract from them more strength than they possess (conditions of work and enforced idleness of the poorest men and women) in order to produce the necessary means of providing shelter and food and bringing up their families. ”

“ As for minimum wage levels, the form of minimum entitlement most widely applied in Europe, they depend on the budgetary possibilities of the State and always tend rather to follow a logic of keeping to the minimum than of granting the means for future economic independence. As the beneficiaries put it, such wages enable one to survive but not to live. There is also the danger that people will remain tied to their particular status. In these circumstances it is difficult to establish a dynamic in which the rights lead on from one to the other and enable progress to be made ”

“ When it is a question of putting fundamental rights into practice, the question "In your eyes, who am I?" becomes more relevant; are you ready to put this fraternity into practice, and have my hopes become your hopes? ”

“ Careless or blind discrimination against those in a weak position leads to cessation of fraternity, crossing the boundary of the poverty areas of the world, beyond which people are "sunk", "trapped", as if they did not exist.
170. The process of impoverishment may thus be seen as a series of violations of fundamental rights at the conclusion of which those living in poverty are more liable to find themselves subject to the "restrictive clauses" that our international and national instruments allow, than to be recognized as defenders of human rights. ”

“ It is important to understand to what extent economic, social and cultural dependence constitutes an impediment to a person’s freedom as a citizen; there is no freedom of thought for the person who must get on well with present or putative creditors ("You have to be on good terms with everyone") ; and there is no freedom of expression or association for those who have to "maintain a low profile". ”

“ It remains the opinion of the Special Rapporteur that the question of extreme poverty should not be seen only as a social phenomenon requiring further study and analysis, but also as a problem which requires strong moral and political commitment aiming at eradication of poverty. Human rights norms provide a normative basis for such commitment and, indeed, it could be argued that human freedom calls for such a commitment. ”

“ Conversely, benefits of a purely economic, social or cultural nature (literacy, payment of a minimum wage, work, housing, etc.) if stingily granted to the very poor, cannot liberate their minds. Security of existence "at a reduced rate" or on a "second class" basis, as has been the case in a number of industrialized countries, neither serves to free the mind of material worries nor to "make a new start with one’s head held high". Too often, it only consolidates second-class citizenship in all respects. ”

“ Creation of a soil in which human rights can be exercised is in itself a step towards realization of those rights
188.In seeking to understand extreme poverty we must therefore depict the daily courage of the most destitute, as a preface to any project for the promotion of human rights and to any development project, whatever its economic, political or cultural context. ”

“ He meant by this the torture of the daily concern not to dissatisfy those who have power over you; the torture of slum housing which destroys all family harmony; the torture of silence which forces the poor to let their minds wander in circles and to destroy themselves ”