International Day for the Eradication of Poverty
Theme 2022: Dignity for all in practice
The commitments we make together for social justice, peace and the planet
Dignity for all in practice is the overarching theme of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty for 2022-2023. Human dignity is not only a fundamental right in itself, but forms the basis of all other fundamental rights. That is why “dignity” is not an abstract concept: it belongs to everyone. Today, many people living in persistent poverty experience their dignity being denied and disrespected.
Committed to ending poverty, protecting the planet, and ensuring that all people everywhere enjoy peace and prosperity, the 2030 Agenda again motioned to the same promise set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Yet the current reality shows that 13 billion people still live in multidimensional poverty, almost half of them children and young people.
“The government can no longer give the basics”
The social minimum is too low, concludes the National Ombudsman.
“I see people who don't have enough to live on.”
“We fell through the bottom.” Reinier van Zutphen, the National Ombudsman, has been seeing it for a long time. One of the foundations for a civilized society — that no one has to fail — is faltering. “The government is no longer able to give people the basics. What it takes to send your kids to school on a full stomach, pay your rent, the gas, the light.”
This problem is not new, he says. It was already playing before prices rose so extremely fast. But it has now become worse and more visible. “We had the idea for a long time: it should all be as minimal as possible. But that is no longer possible.”
The National Ombudsman Reinier van Zutphen reports on people who have to make ends meet around the subsistence minimum: unemployed people on welfare, people with disabilities who can only do a small part-time job, elderly people with incomplete state pension benefits, refugees who are just getting their residence status having.
His hardest conclusion: the social minimum is too low. That is the amount that, according to the government, is at least necessary to live on. And that determines the amount of the assistance allowance, which is now net 1,100 euros for a single person.
