Austerity Undermining Essential Human Rights In Greece, Warns UN Expert
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Austerity measures in Greece have severely reduced citizens’ access to jobs, health, water and energy, said a United Nations expert on Wednesday, urging the Greek government and its international bailout lenders to adopt a human rights-based approach to economic reform, amid record unemployment and reduced welfare benefits.
Austerity measures in Greece have severely reduced citizens’ access to jobs, health, water and energy, said a United Nations expert on Wednesday, urging the Greek government and its international bailout lenders to adopt a human rights-based approach to economic reform, amid record unemployment and reduced welfare benefits.
In a news release published on the UN website, the UN independent expert on foreign debt and human rights, Cephas Lumina, said that a surge in unemployment and axed benefits had left a growing number of Greeks without health insurance; and about 10 percent of the population were now living in “extreme poverty” due to the “excessively rigid” demands dictated by the nation’s rescue program.
Lumina, who spent last week as part of a fact-finding mission in Greece, added that the austerity programme was being implemented in the context of a social protection system, but was ill-equipped to absorb the shock of unemployment, salary cuts and tax increases.
“(Human) rights … are under threat or being undermined by harsh pro-cyclical policies — austerity labor reforms, liberalization and privatizations — that the government has been constrained to implement since May 2010,” Lumina told reporters in Athens last Friday, according to The Associated Press.
[quote]“The ostensible aim of the measures is to reduce the fiscal deficit, reduce labor costs and make the economy more competitive. However, the available evidence indicates that these excessively rigid measures have resulted in a contraction of the economy and significant social costs for the population, including high unemployment, homelessness, poverty and inequality,” he added.[/quote]Related: Europe’s Austerity ‘Cure’ Will Never Work: Joseph Stiglitz
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Nearly one third of the Greek population now live without public health insurance and youth unemployment has now reached an unprecedented rate of 59.3 percent, according to UN figures.
Additionally, “due to the increase of long-term unemployment, only about 160,000 persons today receive (unemployment) benefits,” Lumina noted.
A full UN report on the human rights impact of Greece’s austerity program is not expected until March 2014. Meanwhile, both the Greek government and its creditors assured the public last week that growth would return by then as well. However, according to AP, most other estimates expect the recession to continue until 2015 or 2016.
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