Our message is that the United States economic boom has bypassed millions.
Despite a decade of economic growth, the U.S. remains afflicted by pervasive
poverty and a growing wealth and income gap between the rich and poor.
The persistence of poverty, hunger and millions without healthcare represents
a massive violation of people's basic human rights. It is a national shame
that millions of Americans work full-time yet live in poverty. Our campaign
will work with groups to challenge these conditions and build a national
movement for economic human rights. This national campaign is coordinated
by Food First/The Institute for Food and Development Policy, and has been
endorsed by more than 140 organizations nationwide.
Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate
for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including
food, clothing, housing, medical care and necessary social services, and
the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability,
widowhood, old age, or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond
his control.
Article 25, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Although the U.S. was instrumental in designing and drafting the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), it has not ratified the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), which it must
for these economic rights to become legally binding in the U.S. A world
with human dignity for all must be based on economic, social and cultural
as well as civil and political rights. As President Franklin Delanor Roosevelt
described in a 1944 State of the Union address to Congress, human rights
are indivisible:
We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual
freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. "Necessitous
men are not free men."
The Time Has Come! campaign demands the US Senate support economic human
rights by joining 142 countries (as of September 2000) in ratifying the
ICESCR. In support of this goal the campaign is introducing the tools
and language of economic and social human rights into the debate on hunger
and poverty in America. Specifically the campaign is working to:
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Assemble a coalition of organizations working on economic and social
human rights.
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Develop and distribute materials for training local hunger and poverty
groups in the use of the language of economic and social rights -
including fact sheets, and a book and documentary titled America Needs
Human Rights.
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Organize Congressional and town hall hearings on human rights implications
of hunger and poverty in the US
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Work with city councils to declare themselves to be human rights
communities respecting, protecting, facilitating and fulfilling economic
human rights of all people.
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Push for US ratification of the International Covenant for Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR).
More Information:
The Economic Human Rights Bus Tour in California, May 29-31
Past Events
Human Rights Community Resolutions
Resources
