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Effective Implementation of the OPSC 2010, para. 100
- Paragraph text
- Poverty and lack of a family environment are often the cause of institutionalization.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, including child prostitution, child pornography and other child sexual abuse material
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Poverty
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Child and dependant care, including sharing of work and family responsibilities 1996, para. 3
- Paragraph text
- Economic, social and demographic changes - particularly the growing participation of women in economic and social life, the evolving nature of family structures, the feminization of poverty and the link that exists with unremunerated work - and their impact on the capacity of families to ensure the care of children and dependants, as well as the sharing of family responsibilities, including for domestic work, is an issue that affects not only women but society as a whole.
- Body
- Commission on the Status of Women
- Document type
- CSW Agreed Conclusions / Declaration
- Topic(s)
- Gender
- Poverty
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- Women
- Year
- 1996
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Eradicating poverty, including through the empowerment of women throughout their life cycle, in a globalizing world 2002, para. 5o
- Paragraph text
- [The Commission urges Governments [...] to take the following actions to accelerate implementation of these strategic objectives to address the needs of all women:] Design, implement and promote family friendly policies and services, including affordable, accessible and quality care services for children and other dependants, parental and other leave schemes and campaigns to sensitize public opinion and other relevant actors on equal sharing of employment and family responsibilities between women and men;
- Body
- Commission on the Status of Women
- Document type
- CSW Agreed Conclusions / Declaration
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Equality & Inclusion
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- Men
- Women
- Year
- 2002
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Rights of migrant workers in an irregular situation and members of their families 2013, para. 71
- Paragraph text
- The Committee considers that in cases of extreme poverty and vulnerability, States parties should provide emergency social assistance to migrant workers in an irregular situation and members of their families, including emergency services for persons with disabilities, for as long as they might require it. It recalls that even if many migrant workers in an irregular situation do not participate in contributory schemes, they contribute to financing social protection schemes and programmes by paying indirect taxes.
- Body
- Committee on Migrant Workers
- Document type
- General Comment / Recommendation
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Equality & Inclusion
- Humanitarian
- Movement
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Persons on the move
- Persons with disabilities
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Preliminary survey on the root causes of attacks and discrimination against persons with albinism 2016, para. 60
- Paragraph text
- The marginalization of, discrimination against and exclusion of persons with albinism or their parents, particularly mothers, often means that they are not supported by the community in times of need, are sometimes excluded from economic programmes or benefits, and are unable to rely on relatives and other similar social networks that often cushion economic hardship. The results of such exclusion include poverty, lack of education and corollary issues of unemployment, poor housing and ill health. These factors render them hyper-vulnerable to abuse and attacks, because perpetrators are aware of their disenfranchisement and their lack of resources and redress in the face of crime committed against them.
- Body
- Independent Expert on the enjoyment of human rights by persons with albinism
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Year
- 2016
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Access to land and the right to food 2010, para. 30
- Paragraph text
- In addition to its economic functions of stimulating growth and reducing rural poverty, more equitable access to land for the rural poor contributes to social inclusion and economic empowerment. Access to land also improves food security, since it makes food more easily and cheaply available, providing a buffer against external shocks. Evidence resulting from land redistribution in China suggests that "even though access to land insures household income only moderately against shocks, it provides almost complete insurance against malnutrition". More equitable land distribution and the development of owner-operated family farms are thus desirable on both efficiency and equity grounds. Small family-owned farms can use the land in more sustainable ways, since sustainable farming is often more labour-intensive and requires the linking of farmers to the land. Moreover, where rural areas face high unemployment and underemployment and relative scarcity of land, it is more sensible, from both an economic perspective and a social justice perspective, to raise land productivity than to try to increase labour productivity.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The right to an adequate diet: the agriculture-food-health nexus 2012, para. 11
- Paragraph text
- The fight against NCDs is underfunded, in part, because it was not included in the Millennium Development Goals adopted in 2000. Less than 3 per cent of development assistance for health goes to combating NCDs, even though they cause more than one third of all premature deaths. The poorest segments of the population are affected disproportionately. Poor families may be unable to afford the increased health-care expenditures that result from NCDs. Annually, 100 million people are pushed into poverty because they cannot afford the necessary health services. In India for example, treatment for diabetes costs an affected person on average 15-25 per cent of household earnings, and cardiovascular disease leads to catastrophic expenditure for 25 per cent of Indian families and drives 10 per cent of families into poverty. Furthermore, people who are affected may not be able to work, and their family members may have to provide care, resulting in lost revenues. Poor families may be less educated, on average, about the risks of unhealthy diets, and they lack the resources to improve their diets.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Health
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women’s right and the right to food 2013, para. 24
- Paragraph text
- However, partly because of concerns with the fiscal sustainability of unconditional cash transfer programs, and partly in order to encourage poor families to invest more in their children and thus reduce the inter-generational transmission of poverty, conditional cash transfers (CCTs) have been expanding in recent years. Such CCTs generally target certain poor regions and, within those regions, poor households. They generally provide cash or sometimes nutritional supplements, usually to the mother or primary caregiver, provided certain conditions are met. These conditions relate most often to children's school enrolment and attendance level, and attendance at pre- and postnatal health-care appointments to ensure that children receive appropriate vaccinations and to check their growth. In previous mission reports, the Special Rapporteur discussed the well-known CCTs that have been launched in Mexico (Progresa/Oportunidades) and in Brazil (Bolsa Familia) (A/HRC/13/33/Add.6 and A/HRC/19/59/Add.2). An early example is Bangladesh's Female Secondary School Assistance Project (FSSAP) launched in 1993 (see para. 16 above), which was complemented, in July 2002, by the Primary Education Stipend Project (PESP). The PESP aimed to increase the educational participation (enrolment, continued attendance and educational performance) of primary school children from poor families throughout Bangladesh (initially estimated at more than 5 million pupils) by providing cash payments to targeted households. Despite significant targeting problems during its initial phase, the programme is credited for improving educational attainments.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 68
- Paragraph text
- When children do not have documents they face triple discrimination: as children, as migrants and as being undocumented, and thus they constitute one of the most vulnerable groups. Their right to adequate housing, as well as other economic, social and cultural rights, are often severely affected in those circumstances. Among undocumented children, a particularly difficult situation is that of unaccompanied migrant children, who, because their parents are unable to work or they have no parents to look after them, are forced into poverty and exclusion. Often living on the streets, in parks and in front of shops, these children are excluded from child protection services and are denied adequate housing. In certain countries, unaccompanied children are detained for living on the streets and are institutionalized in prison-like conditions or deported to countries where they have no family to care for them (see A/HRC/14/30, paras. 58 and 59).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Poverty
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The right to adequate housing in disaster relief efforts 2011, para. 53
- Paragraph text
- As mentioned above, the earthquake in Haiti highlighted the largely inadequate housing conditions and the precariousness and insecure tenure of informal settlements. The international community, by focusing on people displaced in camps, and by offering conditions superior to those enjoyed by many Haitians, inadvertently made camps attractive places. While systematic reconstruction accompanied by the provision of services in neighbourhoods of return is not forthcoming, there is thus little reason for poor families to leave the camps where housing and services are provided free of charge. Although understandable from an emergency perspective, a narrow focus on the plight of internally displaced persons and temporary solutions becomes, amidst a difficult socio-economic and tenure context, an obstacle to long-term recovery, and in some cases may result in further development problems. Such situations are bound to become more frequent, with increased urbanization, much of which occurs in an unplanned manner (see A/64/255, paras. 13-21).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Humanitarian
- Movement
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Post conflict and post disaster reconstruction and the right to adequate housing 2011, para. 7
- Paragraph text
- The impacts of both conflicts and disasters for the individuals, families and communities affected can be devastating. These include the loss of life and livelihoods; destruction of homes, property and infrastructure; disruption or termination of essential services; and the prolonged and sometimes even permanent forced displacement from land, home and community. Although wealth and power do not offer any immunity from these impacts, it is in most cases the poor and socially disadvantaged who are worst affected; and it is also they who are least able to withstand economic shocks and so generally take the longest to recover.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Movement
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The impact of housing finance policies on the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty 2012, para. 50
- Paragraph text
- Until the 1980s, slum dwellers and the urban poor had not been a market for financial services. As previously mentioned, the reasons were the inability of low- and even middle-income households to afford housing finance debt; the incompatibility of formal finance loan requirements (such as complex collateral and extended repayment capabilities) with the characteristics of low-income households (low level and irregularity of income and lack of security of tenure); and the fact that financial institutions perceived few incentives to lend to the poor, who usually "consume" small loan amounts and entail high transaction costs. As a result, low- and even middle-income households adopted "informal" finance strategies based on individual savings, family loans and remittances, or moneylenders or pawnbrokers.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Reflection on work undertaken in first 14 years of the mandate; outline of opportunities and priorities 2014, para. 18
- Paragraph text
- The consequences of inadequate housing and homelessness are severe, with implications for almost every other human right, including the rights to health, education, protection of the family, social security, work and, in many cases, life. Malaria, cholera, dengue fever and many other diseases that continue to ravage the poor in tropical countries are closely linked to poor housing conditions, as are tuberculosis, pneumonia and many other illnesses affecting those who are homeless in northern climates. Yet, despite the severity of the consequences and the fundamental human rights that are involved, homelessness and inadequate housing are still often seen as the preserve of socioeconomic policy and as insulated from the kind of legal human rights accountability that is applied to government policies affecting other human rights. Even when housing is recognized as a human right, how it should be implemented is not always clear to States and other stakeholders.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Health
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Year
- 2014
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The right to life and the right to adequate housing: the indivisibility and interdependence between these rights 2016, para. 23
- Paragraph text
- Japan has yet to recover and continues to see ever-growing numbers of homeless people. Unemployment rates tripled in a 10-year period in Argentina, resulting in a large number of households being unable to pay their mortgages, rent or utility bills. In Spain, Ireland and Greece, thousands of low-income and poor individuals suffered foreclosures or debt-related evictions and were thus forced out of their homes into encampments or into overcrowded accommodation with relatives and friends, or were left homeless. In these circumstances, increased suicide rates are not uncommon. In the United States, suicides spurred by severe housing stress - evictions and foreclosures - doubled between 2005 and 2010. Europe also saw a 6.5 per cent increase in suicides between 2007 and 2011. In States where social programmes were made available to those affected, similar spikes in suicide rates were not seen.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Year
- 2016
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Homelessness as a global human rights crisis that demands an urgent global response 2016, para. 40
- Paragraph text
- The ongoing legacy of discriminatory customary and statutory laws on divorce, inheritance and matrimonial property - as well as social practices that attribute housing to male heads of households and the resultant poverty - deprive women of security of tenure and render them particularly vulnerable to homelessness. When women are widowed, separated or divorced, need to leave violent households or flee situations of armed conflict or natural disasters, or are evicted from their homes, they face significant risks of becoming homeless. Divorced and widowed women in Bangladesh and Lebanon, for example, are reported to be living in dilapidated shacks in dangerous informal settlements and women fleeing violence in Kyrgyzstan and Papua New Guinea are left with few housing options.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Humanitarian
- Poverty
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Women
- Year
- 2016
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Homelessness as a global human rights crisis that demands an urgent global response 2016, para. 43
- Paragraph text
- Homelessness among children and young people has reached critical proportions. Factors that push children into leaving home include parents' unemployment and poverty; family disintegration and parental abuse; parental drug and alcohol addictions; and being orphaned owing to HIV/AIDS, Ebola, armed conflict or natural disaster. Some families, unable to support children because of extreme poverty, abandon or send them to urban areas to work. Children raised in residential institutions often find themselves homeless when they reach the age at which institutional care ceases. Identified "pull" factors include "spatial freedom, financial independence, adventure, city glamour and street-based friendships or gangs".
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Humanitarian
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- Youth
- Year
- 2016
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Homelessness as a global human rights crisis that demands an urgent global response 2016, para. 44
- Paragraph text
- Most families of street-connected children have experienced persistent discrimination, poverty and social exclusion. Street-connected children and young people face particular challenges, including the threat of being removed from their parents for neglect and put into orphanages or foster systems. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex young people are overrepresented in homeless populations in some countries and face additional stigmatization and social exclusion from their families and communities, and are more vulnerable to violence and more likely to be turned away from shelters.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- LGBTQI+
- Youth
- Year
- 2016
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Rights of indigenous women and girls 2015, para. 20
- Paragraph text
- Some of the poverty reduction initiatives put in place to support indigenous communities are not always culturally sensitive and are therefore ineffective. For example, the practice of providing conditional cash transfers to poor indigenous families in exchange for compliance with preconditions, such as sending their children to school or requiring pregnant women to go for check-ups and to deliver in rural clinics or hospitals. Such practices have tended to be blind to the cultural values of indigenous peoples and also do not address the specific root causes of poverty.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Poverty
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Ethnic minorities
- Families
- Women
- Year
- 2015
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Human rights of migrants in the post-2015 development agenda 2014, para. 74
- Paragraph text
- With regard to remittances, the World Bank estimates that $436 billion will be sent as remittances in 2014. Private money transfers play a role in increasing household incomes and ultimately improving health and educational outcomes in countries of origin. Consequently, a target on reducing to less than 3 per cent the transaction costs of migrant remittances, as suggested by the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals, would go a long way to improving the economic status of families. Reducing the cost of sending remittances should not, however, be used in lieu of a national policy for poverty reduction, taking into account that remittances are privately owned sums of money.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Movement
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2014
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The importance of social protection measures in achieving Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 2010, para. 18
- Paragraph text
- Moreover, several kinds of social protection programmes contribute to income generation and enable recipients to accumulate and protect assets, building their resilience in the face of shocks and increasing their chances of escaping extreme poverty. The additional income that social protection provides through various types of cash or in kind transfers and microcredit schemes enables families and individuals to accumulate savings, engage in long-term planning and invest in productive assets. Increasingly, social protection programmes are also designed to enable households to invest in human capital development, thus preventing poverty from being passed on from one generation to the next.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Social protection and old age poverty 2010, para. 96
- Paragraph text
- In some countries, structural discrimination against women and increased competition for family resources from younger members often means older women lose control of assets once owned by their husbands and are left without a source of income. In extreme cases, they are subjected to accusations of witchcraft. The context in which accusations of witchcraft are made is complex, resulting from deep-seated cultural beliefs, and the need to apportion blame and seek redress for a negative event, such as a death in the family or crop failure and poverty. Nevertheless, the low status of women and their inability to defend themselves makes them the primary targets of such violence.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Poverty
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Older persons
- Women
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Penalization of people living in poverty 2011, para. 36
- Paragraph text
- These laws are being implemented in a context in which the economic and financial crises have resulted in an unprecedented increase in foreclosures and evictions, forcing a growing number of families to live on the streets. Instead of using public funds to assist these families, States are instead carrying out costly operations to penalize them for their behaviour. Where there is insufficient public infrastructure and services to provide families with alternative places to perform such behaviours, persons living in poverty and homelessness are left with no viable place to sleep, sit, eat or drink. These measures can thus have serious adverse physical and psychological effects on persons living in poverty, undermining their right to an adequate standard of physical and mental health and even amounting to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Penalization of people living in poverty 2011, para. 39
- Paragraph text
- Of particular concern are penalization measures that target those who seek to gain a living through street vending. In many States, street vending is severely restricted or illegal, as is buying from a street vendor. Research shows that street vendors turn to vending because they have no other form of income, have low levels of education and lack employment opportunities. Street vending is a means for the poorest and most vulnerable to earn money to support their families and their livelihoods. When States impose bans, onerous licences or strict restrictions on street vendors, they severely undermine the rights of persons living in poverty to gain a living.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Penalization of people living in poverty 2011, para. 62
- Paragraph text
- Women are also exposed to State interference in their private and family lives in other respects. In particular, States' ever-increasing preference for child protection interventions overwhelmingly affects poor women specifically, and persons living in poverty more generally. Research shows a clear and consistent link between child protection intervention and the disadvantage and marginalization of the families involved. Poverty must not be mistaken for child neglect. Often States disproportionately target children in poor families for child protection proceedings instead of channelling their efforts towards addressing the root causes of child poverty.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- Women
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Penalization of people living in poverty 2011, para. 63
- Paragraph text
- Persons living in poverty will often struggle to navigate the child protection process, which in many countries is an extremely intrusive, adversarial process. Child protection interventions often fail to provide families with sufficient information about the process, and in many countries there is no mandated free legal aid in child protection proceedings. As a result, there is a serious power imbalance between the State and families living in poverty, and a real risk that the judicial process may lead to unnecessary termination or limitation of parental rights or to other results detrimental to the child's best interests.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Human rights based approach to recovery from the global economic and financial crises, with a focus on those living in poverty 2011, para. 29
- Paragraph text
- Since the global economic and financial crises in the financial markets arose in 2007, they have had a devastating impact on poverty rates and presented a serious threat to the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people across the globe. Their disastrous impact has been amplified by a number of pre-existing social and economic realities: the world had been plagued in preceding years by consecutive fuel and food crises, unemployment was already unacceptably high, a majority of workers were employed in the informal sector, and only 20 per cent of the world's working-age population and their families had effective access to social protection.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Families
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Access to justice for people living in poverty 2012, para. 50
- Paragraph text
- The economic and social costs of detention and incarceration can be devastating for persons living in poverty. Detention and incarceration can lead to loss of income and employment and often temporary or permanent withdrawal of social benefits. Their families, particularly their children, are also directly affected. Therefore, criminal justice systems predicated on detention and incarceration, even for minor non-violent crimes, can themselves represent a significant obstacle to access to justice for persons living in poverty. Those who are poor and vulnerable are likely to leave detention disproportionately financially, physically and personally disadvantaged.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Unpaid care work and women's human rights 2013, para. 64
- Paragraph text
- The HIV/AIDS pandemic has severely disrupted and/or increased unpaid care work in many countries. Women are affected by the virus in greater numbers than men and also, in conjunction with girls, provide 70 to 90 per cent of HIV/AIDS care. Caring for an AIDS patient can increase the workload of a family caretaker by one third, so that scarce family financial resources, as well as women's time, are stretched even further. The Special Rapporteur has seen herself during country visits how in communities ravaged by HIV/AIDS the desperate care needs of the sick as well as orphans and other vulnerable children all too often go unmet by the State. Instead, grandmothers, aunts or older girls struggle to fill the care deficit. Moreover, the burden of caring is disproportionately borne by people living in poverty, especially in rural areas, even in those contexts where HIV is more common among urban, wealthier people.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Health
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Unpaid care work and women's human rights 2013, para. 65
- Paragraph text
- Many States with high rates of HIV/AIDS rely on home-based care undertaken by family or community members, essentially shifting the responsibility for care from public institutions to women living in poverty. The long-term social and economic costs of this strategy have been greatly underestimated. Women may have to give up or lose their jobs involuntarily and are likely to find it difficult to return to work, while women who are self-employed may lose earning opportunities. Eighty per cent of family caregivers in South Africa have reported reduced income levels. States' failure to provide meaningful support or alternatives to home-based care impedes greater gender equality, intensifies the poverty and insecurity of whole households, and also threatens the rights, health and well-being of those requiring care.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Gender
- Health
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Women
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Unpaid care work and women's human rights 2013, para. 68
- Paragraph text
- Recently, austerity measures in both developed and developing countries have engendered massive expenditure cuts, including to public services and social protection budgets. As infrastructure and public services are eroded and formal employers contribute less to the costs of care, care responsibilities are shifted back to families, while purchasing basic commodities and care substitutes becomes difficult because of the fall in earnings and the high unemployment rate. Simultaneously, in some developed countries policies intending to remove women from welfare benefits and force them into employment are being implemented, in a context of high unemployment and labour flexibility, and where childcare services are inadequate. As a consequence of these measures women's time is further stretched and their unpaid care work increases, especially in households living in poverty; indeed, it is implicitly expected to act as an unlimited and cost-free alternative to public services and as a shock-absorber for the crisis.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Women
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph