In a way, we can link most of the problems that affect us as the earth today back to poverty. Corruption, I think, would have to be the foremost problem that comes to mind. Corruption is defined as the abuse of power or misuse of office for private ends or personal gain. But forget about the definition for a minute, imagine a place where anything can happen as long as you have money, simply because the government cannot afford to pay its civil servants. In order to provide shelter, food and education for their families, many of these civil servants feel inclined to accept bribes and be corrupt for financial gain. Drugs have easy access into these countries when bribes are taken at borders. Crimes are committed and the police files incriminating the criminal are ‘lost’ when a few hands are greased. But debatably the most frightening effect is that unethical leaders come into power without majority votes, leaving the country un-democratic. As if that isn’t bad enough though when corruption occurs where importation taxes are placed, the government obtains less revenue and therefore is less able to pay its civil servants. Consequently, these civil servants once again in an effort to sustain themselves indulge in corruption leaving their countries poorer still. And thus continues the cycle of poverty.
Arguably the most heartbreaking effect of poverty though is the AIDS scourge which is not only raping our world of great professionals but leaving more AIDS orphans thus adding to the number of children whose dreams are shattered before they can even make them. Despite relentless efforts to educate people on AIDS, its causes, effects and prevention, the number of people who die daily has continued to steadily rise in many places. The worst hit however is undeniably Sub-Saharan Africa, where we have seen the effects on our news and documentaries. This is a place where we have literally seen a whole generation wiped out by this deadly killer. A place where grandparents taking care of grandchildren is the norm rather than the exception. The majority of these casualties are between the ages of 15 and 35, the most productive time in ones life. This is the stage where people are able to contribute most to our world. They are the youth, they are energetic, they are budding with information and new ideas, sadly, we lose thousands of potential presidents, doctors, lawyers, environmentalists, and thousands of other professionals daily … to AIDS. Where do we draw the line?
We are all aware that due to poverty, the number of people with access to school in the Sub-Saharan Africa region has decreased greatly over the last 5 years and without education there is no development. There are more and more dropouts with education costs fees on a constant horizontal gradient. Most of the youth without education or employment are left idle and turn to drugs and alcohol as a way of passing time. The effects of drugs and alcohol are deadly. They range from teenage pregnancies to automobile accidents. A large number of the youth develop an addiction and in order to finance these habits, they turn to violence and crime, thus further ravaging their countries. All youth are then labelled as hooligans and misfits, and so the lack of appreciation of their rights as children goes on. After all, do most of us really believe that misfits and hooligans should have rights?
This brings me to the next point. The appreciating of children’s rights as a international issue in poorer countries was, until recently, utterly ignored. With the popularisation of the ‘Say Yes for Children Campaign’ and other similar campaigns, we are finally taking proper steps forward. Until recently though child labour, child prostitution and child abuse were not even talked about. Even now, although we have become a lot more aware of these problems, they are far from being eradicated. I am sad to say that often poverty is at the root of this. Some adults actually condone their children being exploited so violently because they feel that this is the only way to survive. Thus, since the children are not educated, they will never increase their incomes and their children will participate in the same child exploitation they experienced. Once again, the epic cycle of poverty continues.
Discrimination is another big problem that is directly correlated with poverty. Many times, there is a lot of hostility between the more affluent class and the less affluent class. Most times, the more affluent class are excessively paranoid about the less financially stable. Since crime is one of the major effects of poverty, many people consider the less affluent people to be criminals. They often act with prejudice against the less financially developed and the less affluent then react in indignation. After all, if you are a law-abiding citizen, with children who need an education and shelter yet do not steal because you think it is wrong, and then, you still get blamed for the crime, why not commit it and sustain your family?
None of us are unaware of the life-threatening diseases that affect the extremely poor in places like Central Asia day in and day out. Other than HIV/AIDS, we have ever-looming cholera, dysentery, malaria and a host of other infectious diseases. The state that the people below the poverty line live in is ridiculous. Open sewers, public pit latrines and rubbish heaps are the order of the day. This provides a cesspool for disease carrying organisms that live, breed and feed around these people. To make matters worse, virtually none of these people can afford proper medical attention and so the diseases often go untreated and may result in not only permanent complications but fatalities as well.
The world population problem is a bewildering mixture of the simple and the complex, the clear and the confused. What is relatively simple and clear is that the population in the world is getting larger, and that this process cannot go on indefinitely because there are, after all, limits to the resources, such as food, that are needed to sustain human life. Like all living things, people have an inherent tendency to multiply geometrically - that is, the more people there are the more people they tend to produce. In contrast, the supply of food rises more slowly, for unlike people it does not increase in proportion to the existing rate of food production. This is, of course, the familiar Malthusian relationship and leads to the conclusion that the population is certain eventually to outgrow the food supply (and other needed resources), leading to famine and mass death unless some other countervailing force intervenes to limit population growth. However when we turn from merely stating the problem to analysing and attempting to solve it, the issue becomes much more complex. The fact is that we are faced with a problem and this problem (i.e. poverty) causes over population and not the opposite. Thus we are faced with the following problem: People think that by having more children, they will earn more money because according to them, more children are more workers, more income generators and more time. However, that is not the case. Often, more children simply mean more mouths to feed and more money put into education. All of a sudden, we are faced with a crisis. So what do we do? Encourage child labour and prostitution because it seems like the only way out of the hole we have dug for ourselves. These children often grow up and make the same mistakes and once again. In what seems like a cliché we conclude with the continuing cycle of poverty.
We have listed some of the effects poverty has on our world. We now have some idea of what millions of people have to face day after day after unbearable day. So what? What are you going to do about it? Personally I have always disliked the term: The youth are the future, because we are not. We are the present! The Global Movement for children, NGOs and so many other people have proved that the youth, as well as adults, can do something about poverty today. You can, the question is, will you?
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