What is Poverty?

Poverty entails more than the lack of income and productive resources to ensure sustainable
livelihoods. Its manifestations include hunger and malnutrition, limited access to education and
other basic services, social discrimination and exclusion, as well as the lack of participation in
decision-making. In 2015, more than 736 million people lived below the international poverty line.
Around 10 per cent of the world population is living in extreme poverty and struggling to fulfil the
most basic needs like health, education, and access to water and sanitation, to name a few.
There are 122 women aged 25 to 34 living in poverty for every 100 men of the same age group,
and more than 160 million children are at risk of continuing to live in extreme poverty by
2030. the General Assembly declared 17 October as the International Day for the Eradication of
Poverty.

https://www.un.org/en/sections/issues-depth/poverty/

The World Bank defines poverty in absolute terms. The bank defines extreme poverty as living
on less than US$1.90 per day.[9] (PPP), and moderate poverty as less than $3.10 a day. It has
been estimated that in 2008, 1.4 billion people had consumption levels below US$1.25 a day and
2.7 billion lived on less than $2 a day.

https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release

what rights are at risk in poverty

A. Right to life and physical integrity

Persons living in poverty are often exposed to both institutional and individual risks of violence and
threats to their physical integrity from State agents and private actors, causing them to live in
constant fear and insecurity. Continued exposure and vulnerability to violence affect a person’s
physical and mental health and impair his or her economic development and capacity to escape
poverty. poverty is a cause of preventable death, ill-health, high mortality rates and low life
expectancy, not only through greater exposure to violence but also material deprivation and its
consequences, such as lack of food, safe water and sanitation

B. Rights to liberty and security of the person

Various structural and social factors, including discrimination, cause persons living in poverty to
come into contact with the criminal justice system with a disproportionately high frequency. Fines
imposed on persons living in poverty have a disproportionate impact on them, worsen their situation
and perpetuate the vicious circle of poverty. Homeless persons in particular are frequently subject to
restrictions on their freedom of movement and criminalized for using public space.
C. Right to equal protection before the law, access to justice and effective remedies

Persons living in poverty are often unable to access justice or to seek redress for actions and
omissions that adversely affect them. They encounter a variety of obstacles, from being unable to
successfully register initial complaints owing to costs or legal illiteracy, to court decisions in their
favour remaining unimplemented. Without effective access to justice, they are unable to seek and
obtain a remedy for breaches of domestic and international human rights law

D. Right to an adequate standard of living

States have the obligation to progressively improve the living conditions of persons living in poverty.
Lack of an adequate standard of living is related to limited or insecure means of livelihood. Often a
lack of income and the price of basic commodities combine to form a major obstacle

E. Right to adequate food and nutrition

Adequate food is essential for health, survival and physical and intellectual development, Persons
living in poverty often have limited access to adequate and affordable food, or the resources that
they need to produce or acquire such food. Even where adequate food is available, it often does not
reach persons living in poverty

F. Rights to water and sanitation

Persons living in poverty are disproportionately affected by limited access to water and adequate
sanitation. Unsafe water and lack of access to sanitation are a primary cause of diarrhoeal diseases
linked to high levels of child and infant mortality among families living in poverty

G. Right to work and rights at work

n rural and urban areas alike, persons living in poverty experience unemployment,
underemployment, unreliable casual labour, low wages and unsafe and degrading working
conditions. Persons living in poverty tend to work outside the formal economy and without social
security benefits, such as maternity leave, sick leave, pensions and disability benefits.

H. Right to social security

Persons living in poverty often cannot enjoy their right to social security. States rely only on
contributory systems as the main source of social security benefits, with social assistance
programmes often being inadequate and ineffective

I. Right to education
 Children living in poverty are more likely to drop out of or never attend school in order to engage in
income generating activities or to help in the home. Education is a means by which persons can
develop their personalities, talents and abilities TO their chances of finding employment, of
participating more effectively in society and of escaping poverty.

J. Rights to take part in cultural life and to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its
applications

Poverty seriously restricts the ability of individuals or groups to exercise their right to take part in,
access and contribute to all spheres of cultural life, as well as their ability to effectively enjoy their
own culture and that of others, exacerbating their disempowerment and social exclusion. Persons
living in poverty are often unable to reap the benefits of scientific progress and its applications in an
equal manner.
https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/OHCHR_ExtremePovertyandHumanRights_EN.pdf

Create jobs

Raise the minimum wage

child care and early education

Expand Medicaid

Agricultural Schemes

the steps taken by government to reduce poverty in India

 Annapurna
 National Rural Employment Programme (NREP)
 National Maternity Benefit Scheme (NMBS)
 Rural Labour Employment Guarantee Programme (RLEGP)
 National Family Benefit Scheme (NFBS)
 TRYSEM Scheme
 National Old Age Pension Scheme (NOAPS)
 Jawahar Rojgar Yojna (JRY)
 Outlawing bonded labour
 Swarna Jayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojna
 Modifying law to prevent centralization of wealth
 National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP)
 Antyodaya Plan
 Rural Housing Programme
 Small Farmers Development Programme (SFDP)
 Pradhan Mantri Rojgar Yojna
 Drought Area Development Programme (DADP)
 Nehru Rozgar Yojna (NRY)
 Twenty Point Programme
 Self-Employment Programme for the Urban Poor (SEPUP)
 Food for Work Programme
 Prime Minister’s Integrated Urban Poverty Eradication Programme
(PMIUPEP)
 Minimum Needs Programme (MNP)