WUNRN
UN Draft Guiding Principles on Extreme Poverty: http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Poverty/A-HRC-21-39_en.pdf
I - 8. Although persons living in extreme poverty
cannot simply be reduced to a list of vulnerable groups, discrimination and
exclusion are among the major causes and consequences of poverty. Persons
living in poverty often experience disadvantage and discrimination based on
race, gender, age, ethnicity, religion, language or other status. Women
frequently encounter greater challenges in accessing income, assets and
services and are particularly vulnerable to extreme poverty…..
III - C. 23. Women are disproportionately
represented among the poor owing to the multifaceted and cumulative forms of
discrimination that they endure. States are obliged to eliminate both de jure
and de facto discrimination against women and put in place measures to achieve
equality between men and women.
http://qz.com/473779/several-dutch-cities-want-to-give-residents-a-no-strings-attached-basic-income/
The Netherlands – Dutch “Basic Income” Experiment Expanding – Can Be Help for Low Income Women
Utrecht announced that it would
give no-strings-attached money to some of its residents. Now other Dutch cities
are considering similar plans.
By Maria Sanchez Diez – August 13,
20153.5k Shares
Residents
of Tilburg, Netherlands, may soon be getting an extra paycheck.
Free cash is
in the works for a growing number of Dutch urbanites. After the city of Utrecht
announced that it would give no-strings-attached money to some of its
residents, other Dutch cities are getting on board for social experiments with
“basic income,” a regular and unconditional stipend to cover living costs.
Tilburg, a
city of 200,000 habitants close to the border with Belgium, will follow
Utrecht’s initiative, and the cities of Groningen, Maastricht, Gouda, Enschede,
Nijmegen, and Wageningen are also considering it.
Supporters of
basic income say it is a good mechanism to alleviate poverty and social
exclusion. A recent study conducted in 18 European
countries concluded that generous welfare benefits make people likely to want
to work more, not less.
Ralf
Embrechts, director of the Social Development Association of Tilburg and one of
the promoters of the program, said that’s the theory the program is designed to
test.
“We want to
discover, if you trust people and give them a basic income without any rules or
obligations—so, unconditionally—that they will do the right thing,” he
explained to us in an email.
If Tilburg’s
basic income project gets the green light from Netherland’s state secretary of
social affairs, the town will provide an extra paycheck to a pilot group of 250
people starting in January 2016, said Tilburg officials. The city has not
confirmed the amount of the stipend, but in Utrecht checks will range from
around €900 ($1,000) for one adult to €1,300 ($1,450).
Detractors say that such schemes are expensive and harmful to the
economy, since they don’t stimulate people’s initiative to work.
Although the classic basic income theory proposes universal
payments across the population, the two Dutch experiments will only focus on
residents who are already recipients of social assistance. Those in the program
will be exempt from the severe job-seeking requirements and penalties in Dutch
law.
Authorities
aim to test how citizens react without that sword of Damocles over their heads.
Will the money encourage them to find a job or will they sit in their couches
comfortably?
Several cities
across the world have experimented with basic income, from India to Canada,
where the famous Mincome program took place in the 1970s, in
the town of Dauphin, Manitoba.
Detractors say
that such schemes are expensive and harmful to the economy, since they don’t
stimulate people’s initiative to work. And some complain that these programs
just feel unfair.
“It would be outright unjust if in this way welfare recipients would be getting more money than employees that have been doing full-time low-paid work for years,” asserted the economic daily Het Financieele Dagblad in an op-ed piece (paywall) on Tilburg’s initiative.