A Human Rights Violation
Gandhi called poverty “the worst form of violence.” Indeed, it is not uncommon to hear how poverty beats people up, beats them down, oppresses, enslaves, poisons, erodes self-worth, defeats.
Historian Lynn Hunt writes that “we are most certain that a human right is at issue when we feel horrified by its violation.” Thus, the right to food – one of a number of economic and social rights enshrined in international law – is indeed a human right, whether of the lone person at a food bank or of the millions in hunger in Sudan.
Human rights have been defined as “an international consensus on the minimum conditions for a life of dignity.” But as Lynn Hunt states, “human rights only become meaningful when they gain political content…they are rights that require active participation from those who hold them.”
Economic and social rights therefore require that governments accept the positive obligation to help ensure them. In this context, Louise Arbour argues that giving such rights the status of constitutional entitlement would promote “freedom from want,” while capturing the “immense opportunity to affirm our fundamental Canadian values” such as fairness and equality.
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