SPEAKERS STRESS THREAT TO DEVELOPMENT FROM VIOLENCE, CRIME, IN COMMISSION ON SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
Press Release
SOC/4439
SPEAKERS STRESS THREAT TO DEVELOPMENT FROM VIOLENCE, CRIME, IN COMMISSION ON SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
19980217 Speakers this afternoon stressed the threat to development posed by violence and crime, as the Commission for Social Development considered the social implications of crime and substance abuse. The discussion was part of the Commission's review of ways to implement the goals of the 1995 World Summit for Social Development (Copenhagen, 1995).Violence against women, children and minority groups hindered development and prevented the full enjoyment of human rights, the representative of the United Kingdom told the Commission. Speaking on behalf of the European Union and associated countries, she stressed that violence against women constrained economic and political empowerment.
The representative of Indonesia, speaking on behalf of the "Group of 77" developing countries and China, said that violence and crime increased in conditions of poverty and unemployment and were sustained by ignorance, illiteracy and despair. Criminal activity should be considered within the context of social and economic development. Countries that were at particular risk of violent outbreaks needed the support of the international community.
Jamaica's representative said the underlying causes of such illicit activities should be removed, instead of just treating the symptoms. Viable economic alternatives must be developed for marginalized groups who were likely to be tempted by illicit businesses.
Also this afternoon, the Commission considered the issue of enhancing social protection and reducing vulnerability. The representative of Iraq said the sanctions imposed by the international community against his country directly impeded all aspects of its social development, from health to education to employment. Mortality rates for children under five had increased 1,103 per cent since December 1989, and deaths related to high blood pressure, malnutrition and diabetes had increased in similar proportions. He called on the Commission to consider the moral and legal aspects of those sanctions.
In a special presentation on national efforts to implement the Social Summit's goals, Denmark's representative told the Commission that markets should serve people's needs. Market relations should not invade all social
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relations, but should become democratic, he said. Economic systems must leave individuals with the resources and time needed for activities in the intellectual, artistic and spiritual realms.
Statements were also made by the representatives of China, Cuba, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Gabon, as well as by the Observer for Switzerland. A representative of the World Bank addressed the Committee, as did representatives from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and two non-governmental organizations: the Movement for a Better World and Rehabilitation International.
The Commission will meet again at 10 a.m. tomorrow, 18 February, to continue its consideration of the protection of vulnerable groups and the social dimensions of crime and substance abuse.
Commission Work Programme
The Commission for Social Development met this afternoon to consider the question of enhancing social protection, reducing vulnerability and enhancing employment opportunities for groups with specific needs. It was also to discuss the issues of violence, crime and the problem of illicit drugs and substance abuse as factors of social disintegration. The Commission is continuing its review of the implementation of the outcome of the World Summit for Social Development (Copenhagen, 1995). (For background information, see Press Release SOC/4430 of 9 February.)
Follow-up to Social Summit
TORBEN BRYLLE (Denmark), speaking on behalf of Poul Nielson, Denmark's Minister for Development Cooperation, said his country was proud to have hosted the World Summit for Social Development in 1995. However, the Copenhagen agreements should be considered a point of departure rather than as scripture. Denmark had organized two "Copenhagen Seminars for Social Progress", with participation from government officials and social development experts, to enrich the debate on that issue. During the two sessions, participants agreed that the economic sphere should be subordinate to social objectives. Social development required that the greatest number of people be afforded opportunities for work and income. While redistribution of resources was needed, such policies were not effective when the majority of the population lived in poverty.
Social issues should not be identified with the "soft and superfluous" while economic issues were considered the "hard and the serious", he said. Public institutions should serve the community and search for the common good. Markets, too, must serve human needs. During the Copenhagen seminars, participants tried to determine how markets could become humane and democratic. Markets served societies if they were fair and efficient and did not invade all social relations. Economic systems must leave individuals with the resources and time needed for activities in the intellectual, artistic and spiritual realms. The monetization and marketization of society should be opposed. Economic integration into global markets should include activities to ensure respect for the non-market dimensions of human existence. Tolerance and moderation should be part of economic transactions.
Global markets and communications were useful, but by themselves they would not lead to the emergence of a global community, he said. Such a community must be based on actualizing the richness of the human spirit. Practising basic decency in all human activities would lead to social progress. Responsibility and transparency must be demanded from public institutions and from other main actors on the world economic and political scene.
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General Discussion
ROSALIND EYBEN (United Kingdom), spoke on behalf of the European Union and Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia and Cyprus. She said that women were particularly vulnerable to acts of violence including all forms of sexual harassment and exploitation. Violence against women was a violation of their human rights and constrained their economic and political empowerment. Violence against women, children and persons belonging to minorities in all forms was a hinderance to development and prevented the full enjoyment of human rights.
Training, information and assistance was needed for workers who had problems with drugs, she said. As a part of rehabilitation, vocational training should be available to drug addicts to help them get jobs and to integrate better into society. Since women and men were affected differently by drug abuse, strategies which targeted the abuse of licit and illicit drugs must integrate a gender perspective. There was a need for more gender- disaggregated data and research to reveal gender-related differences in drug taking. Treatment and detoxification centres for drug addicts must be available for men and women on a non-discriminatory basis.
Drug abuse by young people was on the increase in most parts of the world, she said. Nevertheless, youth groups could be engaged as active agents in the field of drug abuse prevention. Youth culture could be a valuable tool for raising awareness. All information technologies, including the Internet, should be used to spread information about the negative consequences of drug abuse, as well as information on how to seek help.
ARIZAL EFFENDI (Indonesia), speaking on behalf of the "Group of 77" developing countries and China, said that violence and crime increased in conditions of poverty and unemployment and were sustained by ignorance, illiteracy and despair. Any effective response from the international community and at national levels must address the root causes of criminal activity, within the context of social and economic development. International assistance was imperative for the developing counties, which were at particular risk as they must also confront a wide range of socio- economic challenges and obstacles.
In adopting policies and programmes to end violence and combat crime and trade in illicit drugs, the particular needs of vulnerable and marginalized groups in society must be addressed, he said. Concerted action must be undertaken to bring an end to violence against women and children. Multidisciplinary approaches should be undertaken that not only sought to prevent violence, but also to ensure fair treatment and effective assistance to the victims. They should seek to increase awareness in society and within
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the criminal justice system about the problem. Similarly, the situation of older persons and the disabled needed to be incorporated into national and international strategies on violence.
Advances in technology and forms of communication had facilitated the globalization of criminal enterprises, particularly illicit trade in narcotics, he went on to say. The national law enforcement capacity of any single country was insufficient to undertake an effective response to the problem. Nations must act within the scope of international cooperation and coordination.
LIN SHA (China) said the problem of drug abuse had affected the social stability and development of all countries in varying degrees. The Chinese Government accorded high priority to the problem and was taking active measures for its solution. Its Law on Penal Proceedings and the Penal Law had been amended.
Law enforcement bodies focused their work on fighting organized crimes which seriously jeopardized people's lives and property, as well as on such violent crimes as robberies, assaults and homicides. Vigorous efforts had also been taken to crack down on corruption and fraud.
In the area of drug control, the Government had set up a national group to direct the work of combating drugs throughout the country and was continuously strengthening and improving relevant legislation, she said. The recently revised Penal Law had strict stipulations regarding the production, smuggling and trafficking of drugs, as well as punishment for the perpetrators of those crimes. Under the guidance of a three-pronged policy prohibiting drug taking, drug cultivation and drug trafficking, a mass campaign against drug abuse was conducted nationwide last year. The entire society had been engaged in widespread anti-drug education.
TANIA MONTESINO (Cuba) said social development was one of the basic foundations of the Cuban revolution. Over the past three decades, the country had achieved significant results in social development. All its citizens had full access to health services. Cuba's rate of infant mortality was 7.3 per thousand live births. If that rate were shared by all Latin American countries, some 500,000 children would be saved annually. Those successes had been achieved despite the fact that Cuba was not a rich country. For decades, Cuba had faced an economic and commercial blockade. Nevertheless, Cuba had reached the health indicators set out by the World Health Organization (WHO) in its "heath for all" plan.
Access to education at all levels was free in Cuba, she said. In addition to extremely favourable teacher-student ratios, the country had 427 special schools, at which disabled children received all services free. Some 14,000 teachers were affiliated with those schools, as were hundreds of
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doctors. The underlying premise of those schools was the integration of their students into society.
Most of the world's poor were located in developing countries, she said. Many of those countries depended on official development assistance (ODA) to implement their social goals. Unfortunately, such assistance was declining. Developing countries faced many difficulties in eradicating poverty, eliminating unemployment and integrating the vulnerable. Cuba was prepared to share its experiences and participate actively in the international community's efforts to achieve the goals of the Social Summit.
OLGA DARGEL (Belarus) said that social protections which were market oriented differed from past programmes in her country, which had depended on State-guaranteed social security systems. Since achieving independence, her Government had adopted laws designed to aid the handicapped, the poor and other vulnerable groups. Social legislation had been designed to protect all inhabitants of the country, regardless of their citizenship. There were also systems of social service to protect wage levels for the handicapped, those who were pregnant or injured, or any others who were temporarily unable to work. Those benefits also extended to the workers' families.
The Government of Belarus believed that social policy must be linked to a gender perspective, she said. Its social reforms sought to improve the situation of women. The State offered financial support for families with children and there were support centres for children and families. Belarus was not in a position to solve all its social problems alone, however. The specific problems of countries in transition should be taken more fully into account by the United Nations and its different bodies. It was hoped that they would help Belarus carry out effective social policies. Belarus was counting on the expertise of the United Nations on such issues as youth policy and unemployment problems.
STEEN LAU JORGENSEN, Manager of the Social Protection Sector of the World Bank, said the Bank was developing operational concepts of vulnerability to facilitate its interventions. As a development institution focused on poverty reduction, the Bank was concerned with identifying individuals and groups for whom a "shock" would result in poverty, or in worsened poverty. Groups became impoverished as a result of shocks primarily because they controlled fewer assets to withstand those shocks. They might have less human capital, physical assets or weaker social relations.
He said that shocks could be defined as natural disasters, changes in economic and social policy, changes in the international environment, international or domestic insecurity, environmental shocks, and health shocks, including epidemics. There were often interrelationships among shocks. To address vulnerability, actions could either be preventive or curative. The World Bank's preventive activities ranged from supporting the development of
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resistance crops to making social security systems more resilient. Curative measures included disaster reconstruction.
The World Bank was ready to contribute to social goals, as outlined in the Copenhagen Declaration, he said. The Bank had restructured its work internally, so that it now had one focal point for social protection activities, including pensions, social assistance, safety nets and labour issues. The Bank expected to lend some $2 billion for such activates in 1998. It was also working with other United Nations bodies on social policy issues. The Bank would welcome the Commission's views on how its work could be integrated into the follow-up of the Social Summit. Partnerships based on comparative advantage were needed to translate the goals of the Social Summit into social realities.
STEFAN BRUPBACHER, Observer for Switzerland, said that globalization should benefit all people. Technological progress and the globalization of the economy provided opportunities, but not for all equally. The gap between losers and winners was widening. In light of that fact, the State must re- examine its role and promote the fundamental rights of all persons. It must also promote employability.
To advance social and economic development, the State must promote the creation of quality jobs, based on sound macroeconomic policies, he said. It must establish conditions so that those jobs could be occupied by a qualified labour force. It must also establish minimal rules for relationships among the actors in the labour sector to reduce power imbalances.
When those measures did not sufficiently improve employability, other possibilities existed, he said. The State could encourage the private sector to create jobs for marginalized groups. Such encouragement could take the form of financial contributions. Social protection provided security to individuals and groups and served as a driving force for social integration. Active and preventive State actions were needed to integrate marginalized groups. A society should not operate at two speeds, he said.
AKMARAL KH. ARYSTANBEKOVA (Kazakhstan) said an analysis of social problems in her country revealed the need to address the practical challenge of protecting the rights and interests of the most vulnerable groups in society -- the disabled. It was essential to define priorities for State action to protect the rights of disabled persons, bearing in mind the United Nations standard rules on the equalization of opportunities for disabled persons. Kazakhstan's priorities in that area involved formulating a goal- oriented policy for the establishment of a specific sector of production for disabled persons, as well as ensuring access by the disabled to education, culture, leisure, sports, work and transport.
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She said that Kazakhstan's strategy through the year 2030 placed special emphasis on the promotion of a healthy lifestyle. That included reducing the consumption of drugs. To discourage drug taking, duties had been imposed on alcohol and tobacco goods. The President of Kazakhstan had stressed the need to intensify international cooperation on drug control and the fight against organized crime, two phenomena which were becoming dangerous global challenges. The governments of many Central Asian countries had recently adopted a declaration on extending and intensifying regional cooperation on drug control. They also approved United Nations International Drug Control Programme (UNDCP) regional projects scheduled for 1998 and 1999.
FAITH INNERARITY (Jamaica) said a study on youth unemployment, sponsored by the International Labour Organization (ILO), had found that there was a need for special programmes to address youth unemployment -- which was a phenomenon of its own right. The study had also determined that education without training was not enough to address the problem. Youth unemployment was both severe and chronic. Both sectoral training, in which the acquisition of skills was emphasized, and community-based training, which highlighted attitudinal changes, were needed.
Regarding violence and illicit drugs as factors in social disintegration, she said that some groups had rejected institutionalized means for achieving goals. They then "innovated", often through illegal activities. Another type of social deviance could be termed "retreatism", practised by persons who rejected society's definitions of successes and became recluses. Members of that group sometimes became drugs addicts. Expanded participation in economic and social activities was needed to reduce the problems of violence, crime and substance abuse.
Revenue from the illicit drug industry was estimated in 1995 at $400 billion, she said. That amount, equalling 8 per cent of total international trade, was on par with world tourism. The underlying causes for such illicit activities should be removed, instead of just treating the symptoms. Every effort should be made to develop viable economic alternatives for marginalized groups -- especially poor farmers and urban unemployed young males -- who were likely to be tempted by the lucrative drug business. Stable family units were also of great importance in solving the drug problem. Illicit drug use had been found to correlate more strongly to family disintegration than to poverty.
NINA SIBAL, of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), said the International Conference on Poverty and Social Exclusion, held a year ago in Costa Rica, brought together 14 Latin American experts on poverty, as well as representatives of governments and some United Nations bodies. The Conference found that economic affluence resulting from neo-liberalistic policies on the macro level no longer trickled down to the wider population, as it had in earlier decades. Rather, affluence remained in
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the hands of very few. In Latin America, for example, poverty increased from 30 per cent in the 1980s to about 60 per cent in the late 1990s. In Europe, the number of poor people had risen to 50 million. For Africa, poverty problems remained, and a change of regime in South Africa did not stimulate the economic development of the surrounding countries. Hence, the world today was confronted with poverty as a major social problem.
She said there were a number of factors influencing poverty which need greater notice. Among them were the illegal supply of drugs and the social transformations that accompanied it. The drug trade, and the resulting capital movements, had taken on a macro-economic dimension of prime importance. A wide variety of complex issues surrounded drug trafficking and use. Often, farming and cultivation of drug raw materials were a primary source of income for many. Drug trafficking groups often arose for reasons of survival and the upward mobility of individuals. Drug trafficking was also sometimes supported and protected by politicians.
Those problems have been taken into account in the design of the International Research Project on the Economic and Social Transformations connected with Drug Trafficking, she said. The new four-year project had been undertaken within the framework of the overall Management of Social Transformations Programme of UNESCO. Among other things, the project was intended to address the following aims: compile and process data on the drug situation in different countries; engage in the comparative analysis of countries and regions; set up a network of research institutions and researchers in the world's major regions; and provide assistance to public decision makers at the national and international levels.
PIERRE-CLAVER ZENG-EBOME (Gabon) said his country worked to create an environment that promoted investment and economic growth, which was essential to social development. Reforms had taken place to improve the situation of the handicapped, women and other vulnerable groups, as well as to ensure cultural diversity and national solidarity. It was the obligation of all governments to reduce inequalities and ensure the participation of all groups. Social protection systems covered the population of the country, including rural workers and deprived persons. Health programmes offered coverage for maternity, professional injuries, sickness, disability, old age and death. However, the country's current economic problems had slowed social reforms and left many of the most vulnerable persons exposed.
For several years, social institutions had been destabilized by an increase in unemployment, as well as by an exponential increase in spending for health care, he said. Gabon faced new challenges and economic distress as a result of the new globalization of society. Structural economic adjustments made by international bodies had not taken the need for social stability into account. The development of free enterprise threatened social protections, the United Nations should help support Gabon and other countries affected by
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such structural adjustments. Gabon had been excluded from programmes which had helped other medium-income countries. It was as if his country was being punished for having some economic success in recent years. International organizations should lend their support to help soften the harmful consequences that such adjustment policies could have on societies.
MOHAMMED AL-HUMAIMIDI (Iraq) said development required political will, financial resources and international cooperation. As a result of the sanctions imposed on Iraq, which were unprecedented in their arbitrariness, his country had been unable to use its primary resource, oil. The sanctions had obstructed international cooperation and dramatically affected the country's social development. The mortality rate of children under five had increased 1,103 per cent since December 1989. Lung diseases had increased by over 1,000 per cent during the same period. Deaths related to high blood pressure, malnutrition and diabetes had increased in similar proportions.
The sanctions had resulted in a lack of medicines and services, he said. They had resulted in reduced employment and security. Negative impacts were felt in the education sector also, and those impacts were made manifest by increasing juvenile delinquency and higher numbers of children dropping out of school. Iraq's food situation, too, had been dramatically affected. The cost of an average family's food basket had increased exponentially in the years since the sanctions were first imposed. The sanctions had resulted in children begging in the streets and in armed robbery, social phenomenon which had never been known before in Iraq.
He expressed the hope that the Commission would consider the destructive influence of the sanctions, both from a legal and a moral perspective. The sanctions should be lifted. They had no justification since Iraq had fulfilled its obligations under relevant Security Council resolutions.
BARBARA SWEET-HANSEN, of the Movement for a Better World, said human rights and dignity could not be separated. If there was agreement on the universality of human rights, regardless of vulnerability, social groups should not be treated as the problem. Social development experts should consider social problems as the problems of society as a whole, rather than of those who suffered from them.
SUSAN B. PARKER, of Rehabilitation International, said the Copenhagen documents brought people with disabilities into social and economic development. They also addressed the need to make buildings handicapped accessible, as well as the need for education and communication formats which accommodated the handicapped. In 1993, the General Assembly had adopted the Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities, which was currently playing an important role in influencing legislation, policies and actions at the national and international levels. It was regrettable that the United Nations Secretariat had not notified Member
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States of the Economic and Social Council's decision to extend the monitoring period under the Standard Rules.
Rehabilitation International called on the United Nations to accord higher priority to the issues relating to persons with disabilities, she said. Such efforts should include the strengthening of its Disability Unit. Also, the United Nations should keep a consistent focus on the issues experienced by people with disabilities. The World Programme of Action and the Standard Rules provided very substantive grounds on which such action could be based.
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