5.7

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5.7Suffering and Structural Violence, Paul
Farmer How to define suffering, and then how to
establish a hierarchy of suffering that is
just? The question how do social forces and
influences determine a structured risk for
disease, poverty, or violence? The Picture in
Haiti
In 1973, the actual wage for a days work on a
coffee plantation was between .07 and .15.
1991s human suffering index resulted in Haiti
as the only ranked country in the Western
hemisphere --the only three countries worse than
Haiti were embroiled in internationally
recognized civil wars Life expectancy is less
than 50 years, largely due to 2 out of every 10
infants dying before their 1st birthday Tuberculos
is and AIDS are the top two killers of adults
for children, diarrheal disease, measles, and
tetanus ravage the undernourished (370)
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But suffering does not translate to graphs and
statistics. Farmer makes the case that, What
these victims, past and present, share are not
personal or psychological attributes. They do
not share culture or language or a certain race.
What they share, rather, is the experience of
occupying the bottom rung of the social ladder in
inegalitarian societies (370). The story of
Kay The creation of the dam in 1956 forced the
villagers to relocate to the stony hills above
the valley (planned by the Haitian government and
the US government) --but the dam brought only
suffering to the residents of Kay They
received neither the electricity nor the
water Acephie and Chouchou Are these stories
of suffering emblematic of something other than
two tragic and premature deaths? Is so, how
representative is either of these experiences?
(376)
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What are the real consequences of poverty?
women escape the countryside in hopes of
finding better lives, but they are often forced
into sex work or borderline slavery Human rights
groups estimate that more than 3,000 Haitians
were murdered in the year after the 1991 coup.
Most of those killed were poor peasants or urban
slum dwellers. In Haiti, AIDS and political
violence are two leading causes of death among
young adults (377) From Farmers perspective,
these deaths are largely preventable, as they are
results of human agencysomeone made the decision
to flood the Artibonite Valley, just as someone
made the decision to fund the unfettered military
forces.
Both victims fates had been sealed long before
Acephie met the Captain or Chouchou encountered
the soldiers. --This predetermined fate was
created by structural violence.
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The term is apt because such suffering is
structured by historically given (and often
economically driven) processes and forces that
conspirewhether through routine, ritual, or, as
is more commonly the case, the hard surfaces of
lifeto constrain agency (377) But structural
violence all too often defeats those who would
describe it due to three reasons. 1. the
exoticization of suffering attained through
distance 2. the weight of suffering is
unconveyable without seeing the anonymous
victims 3. the dynamics and distribution of
suffering are poorly understood Making Sense of
Structural Violence Geographically
broad Historically deep With a simultaneous
consideration of various social axes
--We must consider the constraints to agency in
our analysis
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5.8Testimony by FannyAnn Eddy at the U.N.
Commission on Human Rights, Human Rights
Watch Not only do African leaders not like to
discuss the GLBT community, but they often refuse
to even acknowledge its existence. --GLBT
individuals live in constant fear, even of police
--fear of being excluded from ones family
--live in constant fear of violence from within
their communities When African leaders use
culture, tradition, religion and societal norms
to deny our existence they send a message that
tolerates discrimination, violence and overall
indignity (395) Silence creates vulnerability.
You, members of the Commission on Human Rights,
can break the silence. You can acknowledge that
we exist, throughout Africa and on every
continent, and that human rights violations based
on sexual orientation or gender identity are
committed every day. You can help us combat
those violations and achieve our full rights and
freedoms, in every society, including my beloved
Sierra Leone (395)
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5.9 Facts on Child Labour, International
Labour Organization (June 2004) 1 out of 6
children in the world labors under damaging
conditions. They work for their own and
sometimes their families survival. Nearly 3/4
work in human trafficking, armed conflict,
slavery, sexual exploitation, and hazardous work.
Key Statistics
246 million children are child labourers 73
million are less than 10 years old 8.4 million
children are trapped in slavery, trafficking,
debt bondage, prostitution, pornography and other
illicit activities. 1.2 million of these
children have been trafficked (trafficking is
defined as the transportation of persons for
forced labor, sexual exploitation, or other
illicit activities) Most children work in the
informal sector, without legal or regulatory
protection
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5.10 World Poverty and Hunger Fact Sheet, UN
Bulletin on the Eradication of Poverty (2003) 1.2
billion people live on less than 1 per day. 2
billion people live on less than 2 per day.
24,000 persons die each day due to hunger,
16,000 of whom are children under five years of
age 800 million are malnourished, 200 million of
whom are children Average life expectancy in
areas with chronic hunger is 38 years. People in
wealthy nations live an average of 70 years.
Nearly 1/2 of the worlds hungry are in South
Asia, and one third are in sub-Saharan
Africa. Undernourished populations in India (233
million), South Asia, China (119 million), and
sub-Saharan Africa (196 million) represented
roughly 9 percent of the worlds population in
2000. Economic growth and more equitable
access to resources and markets in the context of
sustainable development are essential for poverty
reduction and food security worldwide. These are
challenges that require broad multilateral
cooperation among governments, civil society and
the private sector (399).
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5.11 Women and the Poor The Challenge of
Global Justice, Nawal El Saadawi How can we
speak about real developments in Africa, Asia, or
South America without knowing the real reasons
for poverty and maldevelopment, and for the
increasing gap between the rich and the poor not
only at the international and regional levels but
also within each country, at the national level?
(401) What is development? It seems to be
defined as increasing poverty as well as a flow
of money from the South to the North.
Development is just another word for
neocolonialism (401) What does this mean? The
result of development is a reduction of human
dignity, with human dignity defined as the
ability to be independent and self-reliant.
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The USA and powerful European countries in the
North have become a de facto board of management
for the world economy, protecting their interests
and imposing their will on the South (402) 90
of transnational corporations are based in the
North, and they control 70 of world trade.
What is a good government in the South? A
good government is now defined as the government
that accepts the conditions of the World Bank and
submits the nations economy to the interests of
transnational corporations and other
international groups. A good government is a
government that accepts what is called aid in
order to achieve what is called development
(403) When American aid to Egypt began in 1975,
measuring the imports/exports with the US through
1986, Egypt imported 30 million in goods and
services from the US while exporting only 5
million in goods and services.
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Religion, the Poor, and Women The increasing use
of the phrase the feminization of poverty
refers to the huge increase of women in poverty,
increasing by about 50 from the 1970s to the
1980s. Women work 2/3 of the total labor hours
worked in the world, earn 1/10 of the worlds
income, and own 1/100 of world possessions
(403-404). Religion is the ideology used by
the rich to exploit the poor in the South The
rise in religious fundamentalism is an
international phenomenon. Additionally, All
fundamentalist groups, whether Christian, Jewish,
or Islamic, are antagonistic to womens
liberation and womens rights (404) An overall
call to break away from the patriarchal,
capitalist system that continues to oppress women
and create povertyConvincing?