At the forum “Overcoming Poverty: a Matter of Human Rights Protection,” held at Kyiv’s Ukrainian House on Dec. 12, Francis M. O’Donnell, UN System Coordinator for Ukraine, said that poverty is the cause and consequence of failing to secure human rights. The forum was held in conjunction with Human Rights Day marked this year under the slogan “A Duty, not Charity!”
In cooperation with the UN Mission in Ukraine, the newly formed International Tolerance Center of Ukraine headed by parliamentarian Oleksandr Feldman launched a nation-wide sociological study to determine the level on which human rights are observed in this country.
The results are disheartening. A mere 12 percent of more than 1,000 respondents see positive trends in the protection of their rights; 59 percent have not noticed any changes for the better, and 28 percent are convinced that the situation is going from bad to worse.
“Poverty is the main cause of human rights violations,” says V. Yatsenko, representative of the authorized parliamentary official in charge of human rights. This is not surprising, given that Ukrainians are mostly concerned about social rather than civic and political rights, because social rights have most to do with daily life. Ukrainians are concerned about the problem of a free health service (44.8%), the right to work (39.8), and social protection (34.7). Slightly more than 10 percent of respondents are concerned about freedom of expression, conscience, and free will.
In a word, the main problems for the population are those that arise from their inability to pay for some vitally important service. According to Yatsenko, 25 percent of the employed are paid less than the living wage. “These conditions are a threat to the very existence of the Ukrainian people, the Ukrainian nation,” he sums up.
Vasyl Kostrytsia, national correspondent of the International Labor Organization (ILO) noted: “The problem of the working poor is one of multiplication: they become poor forever because without high incomes now, they won’t receive good pensions later.”
Researchers and politicians see different complex solutions to this problem. O’Donnell says the UN will do its best to reduce the number of people living below the poverty line. The task is not only to increase per capita income, but also to see how this income is being distributed and keep it under control. Feldman says that “poverty cannot be overcome by economic means alone, only by applying political levers.”
Will this work? For the time being there is a huge gap between the rich and poor in Ukraine. The results of the sociological survey show that the ratio of income inequality between the rich and poor is 30:1, compared to 7:1 in China, 4.3:1 in Japan, and 5.7:1 in EU countries.
Of course, sharing is the simplest but by no means the easiest way to bridge this difference. At issue are financial and social aid programs for sick people and orphans, as well as programs aimed at supporting people who will eventually be able to help others, like talented students and people starting out in business. There are already foundations in Ukraine, run by the likes of Viktor Pinchuk, Rinat Akhmetov, and Oleksandr Feldman, but such examples are few.
Philanthropy is encountered more often, but it is one thing to pay for the unveiling of a monument and quite a different thing to set up scholarships or grants. This requires not only money but also an understanding of the significance of such projects, the importance of bridging a gap that formed a long time ago and which will never allow our country to be called a developed one.
