Human Rights and Poverty - Research Paper Example

? Human Rights and Poverty Human Rights and Poverty Problems always exist in the world and in the society because of many factors. One may say that those factors may contradict or help one another in actually creating more problems. Some of those are changes in the environment, negative human behavior and desires, outdated societal system, inequalities and many more. One of the products of those factors is also one of the major problems in the world up to the present time. Despite of the efforts to eradicate it, it still exists in numbers today and that problem is known as poverty. Many people do not have livelihood while having large family size. They do not have the means to buy all their needs fully. Sometimes they skip meals and usually they eat small portions of food divided amongst the members of the family. Normally they only purchase fish or vegetables and rice or bread. Despite of the normal needs of people to eat at least three full meals a day, many still strive to meet that basic requirement to sustain their lives. Such kind of problem has some negative complications in the society. Crimes increase when people do not have the means to earn money to buy their needs especially food. It is really difficult to stop the survival instinct of people when they are in danger. Almost all people will do everything that they can do to survive. They will not have the time to think if their actions are good or bad resulting to increase in crimes. Some may steal and rob establishments while others may even resort to killing other people for money. They all do that just to have the means to buy food. Despite of the occurrences of crimes due to poverty, not all poor people do that of course. Some may not do harm on other people but they resort to drugs to forget about their hunger and they just sleep. Some may even resort to prostitution just do earn to survive. Those tactics may be judged by society as bad or evil but it would really be hard for those poor people to sometimes avoid doing those things. Probably a good way to understand them is through immersion. It is an activity that is done to actually live for a few days with lower income families to understand their behavior, culture and conditions. In that way, those who are on the average and wealthy families can understand them better. Perhaps, better understanding may lead to innovations and reforms to help alleviate poverty in the society worldwide. Societal problems may be connected to human rights since everybody is entitled to have the respect and the need to meet the basic necessities to survive. It means that human rights are connected to poverty. Before discussing the connection between the two concepts, it would help if human rights are defined first. Basically, human rights are the foundations of what a human being must have. Those are applicable to all people around the world without biases. Those are known to be either legal or natural rights in the face of both the country laws and the laws of United Nations. In short, those basic civil liberties must be general and without discrimination. They should be the focus of the laws and policies around the world. Since it is the focus, it has spawned several debates in both regional and international conventions and meetings of policy makers (Donnelly, 2003). Their debates involve the scope of the human rights based on philosophical definition of what rights should be. It has been seen in the history as the movement has existed to push through the human rights. It started since the end of World War Two and at the time of the existence of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that had been announced by the United Nations to be the center of policies and focus of lawmakers in both the national and international level (Orend, 2002). Way before the World War especially the ancient times, human rights in general had not been established. The old societies had concentrated on functions, duties, politics and the realization of the capacity of human beings outside of the concept of civil liberties. It was only during the Middle Ages when the dawn of human rights had been realized (Donnelly, 2003). People had based the liberties to natural rights and ethics of the theistic religions like Judaism and Christianity. The realization was further developed with the minds of famous philosophers like Jean Jacques Burlamaqui and John Locke. Their ideas had molded the concept of human rights in the revolution of Americans (Donnelly, 2003; Pogge, 2008). The history had shown how the present human rights had formed because of their precursors. The modern concept of civil liberties had existed in the twentieth century due to political reforms and social movements. Those efforts and events had led to the high regards of people for the human rights as one of the primary agenda in the global setting (Donnelly, 2003; Pogge, 2008). Now for the relation between poverty and human rights, it would be helpful to establish the situation of poverty in the world today. Many people believe that poverty brings about violations of civil liberties. Many families around the world are living in the undesirable conditions as they are being forced by the authorities toward places that are not good to live at. Since the poor do not have the means to buy or rent for a shelter, they have to live illegally and settle in places that are not developed into subdivisions. They may live near rivers and landslide-prawn areas. Other may even build their homes near railroads where people may not be safe. Poor children are also affected by the human rights violation as they do not have access to education. In some places, there are women who do not have access to maternal care and they die young (Pogge, 2008). In addition, those societies allow early marriage without letting the girls mature before they are ready to bear children. To connect poverty and human rights, the understanding may become deeper by immersion. People from average to wealthy families can join the cause to experience and sense the daily lives of the poor families. Those participants may have the realization on how hard it is to live as a person from a poor family. The roles that may be assumed by participants are the ones that are in the low-income category like a person who does not have a job, a striving family member who is a breadwinner, a retired citizen who depends on his Social Security while taking care of his grandchildren (Pogge, 2008). The simulation is also empowered by the activities which require the participants to talk to various establishments like stores, banks, employers and government agencies regarding the actions that can be taken to help the poor. The practice would end with a summary session where the participants share their perspectives and experiences in the activities. The activities allow policymakers and other people to understand the challenges of people face everyday who live in poverty. The participants will be able to develop the ways on how to help those who are in-need by understanding them through experience. It goes beyond the learning through theories alone because in the simulation, participants can feel the exact conditions of the poor. References Donnelly, J. (2003). Universal human rights in theory and practice. USA: Cornell University. Orend, B. (2002). Human rights: Concept and context. Australia: St. Clair Press. Pogge, T. (2008). World poverty and human rights. 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