Why is poverty a human right crisis?

‘Respect for human rights also requires that we also recognize that everybody has the right to the things which are essential for a dignified existence – food, water, basic health care, education and housing. Those rights – which are based on universal values – give people who live in poverty an instrument to restore the disturbed balance of power that keeps them poor.’ With this basic thesis out of the book An unheard truth. Poverty and human rights, Irene Khan – until recently Secretary General of Amnesty International – broadens the scope for the debate on human rights. She calls development a fundamental human right, and describes poverty as the worst violation of the human rights. At the MO*lecture, Irene Khan sketsched the consequences of the thesis on an ethical foreign policy. During this MO*lecture, minister of Foreign Affairs Steven Vanackere gave his vision on the connection between human rights, development and foreign policy. During a visit to the UN Human Rights Council – of which Belgium currently is the president – Vanackere stressed the importance of all human rights for everybody -including social and economical rights. ‘Poverty has to do with more than only a lack of income, in that sense it is also a question of rights. But you can not just equate human rights and the fight against poverty, that does not benefit the clarity’, thus the Minister in a short interview with MO*.