Human Rights Violations as Obstacles to Escaping Poverty: The Case of Lone-Mother-Headed Families

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511842269.013

12 - Human Rights Violations as Obstacles to Escaping Poverty: The Case of Lone-Mother-Headed Families

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012

Ken Neubeck

Edited by

Shareen Hertel and

Kathryn Libal

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Ken Neubeck: Affiliation:
University of Connecticut
Shareen Hertel: Affiliation:
University of Connecticut
Kathryn Libal: Affiliation:
University of Connecticut

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Summary

INTRODUCTION

The United States is best characterized as an “outlier” in comparison with other affluent nations when it comes to examining and addressing domestic social and economic conditions through the lens of a human rights framework (Schulz 2009). Over the last decade, however, an energetic albeit somewhat eclectic domestic political movement has emerged within the United States whose goal is to bring this nation's domestic policies and practices into conformity with international human rights principles and standards. This movement, in effect, seeks to “bring human rights home” (Thomas 2008).

The U.S. human rights movement is spearheaded by an informal and growing coalition of more than 200 national, regional, and local social justice organizations that identify as members of the U.S. Human Rights Network (http://www.ushrnetwork.org). The network coalition is diverse, both geographically and in its composition. Member organizations address a wide range of human rights issues, including the protection of civil liberties, abolition of capital punishment, immigration reform, homelessness and affordable housing needs, health care, environmental deterioration, as well as the rights of indigenous peoples, the LGBTQ population, workers, prisoners, people with disabilities, impoverished families, women, children, and people of color (Soohoo, Albisa, and Davis 2008).

Within the U.S. human rights movement, poverty in the United States and the U.S. government's response to it are central human rights issues. Domestic poverty has not typically been framed as a human rights matter by U.S. political elites, the mass media, or most scholars.

Type: Chapter
Information: Human Rights in the United States
Beyond Exceptionalism
, pp. 234 - 254

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511842269.013 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2011

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