|
What We Stand For
The Working Group of Social Security Now, an alliance
of 500 organisations, met on 21-22 June 2007 in Bhopal.
After one-and-a-half-day’s discussions, the group arrived
at a consensus on issues, strategies, outreach initiatives
and non-negotiable elements towards providing social
security for unprotected workers. This paper captures
the working group’s discussions and is expected to evolve
as the base and guiding policy document for the campaign.
Background
The neo-liberal paradigm is a reality of today’s global
economy. The economic growth rates of states are unprecedented.
Despite this, poverty, hunger and a lack of basic resources
still affect a large majority across the world. India,
a country that has already earned the epithet of an
‘emerging economy’ based on ‘growth’ statistics, manifests
this contradiction most poignantly. Traditional means
of livelihood are vanishing, increasingly becoming infeasible
or are simply being snatched. Work is moving from the
formal to the informal sector. An increasing number
of people are working in hazardous and precarious conditions
for longer hours, yet have incomes that are barely enough
to meet their survival needs let alone enable them to
cope with any contingencies. Traditional social support
systems are vanishing rapidly with nothing new being
created to replace them.
Every individual works not only to be able to survive
but also to be able to maintain an adequate standard
of living and lead a dignified and secure life for the
self and the family.
What we have today is a situation in which people work
hard and for long hours and are yet able to make enough
only to just barely survive. They have nothing which
they can fall back upon in times of contingencies such
as unemployment, sickness, accidents, child birth, children’s
education, family events such as marriages or deaths,
widowhood and old age and are forced into a vicious
cycle of debt and deprivation.
What is Social Security
Social security, in the broad sense of the term, means
the overall security for a person in the family, work
place and society. It must include the measures designed
to ensure that all citizens meet their basic needs (such
as adequate nutrition, shelter, health care and clean
water supply), as well as be protected from contingencies
(such as child birth, child care, illness, disability,
death, unemployment, widowhood and old age) to enable
them to maintain an adequate standard of living consistent
with social norms. It must also, by implication, include
the protection of livelihoods and a guarantee of work
and adequate and fair wages, because, without this,
other contingency benefits have no meaning.
The right to social security represents an important
legal guarantee aimed at ensuring the right of every
Indian to live a life in human dignity. The implementation
of that right is an essential pre-condition for the
realisation of other related human rights, such as the
right to an adequate standard of living, the right to
health, the protection of mothers and children and other
rights enshrined in various human rights instruments.
Thus, the recognition of social security as a human
right represents an essential bridge between needs-based
charity to rights-based social justice.
As a member of the United Nations, India has signed
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the
International Covenant on the Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights (ICESCR), the Convention on the Rights of the
Child (CRC) and the Convention on the Elimination of
all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). The
right to social security has emerged as human right
and India, under international commitments and obligations,
is bound to provide social security to all citizens
equally. Articles 21 to 31 of the UN’s ‘International
Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant
Workers and Members of their Families 1991’ provides
for social security and other labour rights of migrant
workers.
The Constitution of India also provides for the right
of equality, the right to life and the right of social
protection in both explicit and implicit fashions. The
overall spirit of the Constitution of India guarantees
social security measures to workers of the unorganised
sector. The Constitution of India provides the rights
to equality (Article 14), freedom of speech and association
(Article 19) and rights against discrimination (Article
15) and exploitation such as right against traffic in
humans and right against forced labour (Article 23),
and right against child labour (Article 24). The Constitution
of India requires that the state should strive to promote
the welfare of the people by securing justice – social,
economic and political. The state is constitutionally
bound to provide adequate means of livelihood, ensure
that the health and strength of workers and the tender
age of children is not abused, and ensure that citizens
are not forced by economic necessity to enter avocations
unsuited to their age or strength [Article 39 (a), (b)
and (e)]. The state is enjoined to make effective provisions
for securing the right to work, education and public
assistance in case of unemployment, old age, sickness
and disablement and other cases of undeserved want (Article
41). The state is enjoined to make provisions for securing
just and humane conditions of work and maternity relief
(Article 42), to endeavour to create conditions of secure
work, provision of a living wage and to create conditions
of work ensuring a decent standard of life and full
enjoyment of leisure (Article 43). The state should
regard the raising of the level of nutrition and the
standard of living of its people, and improvement of
public health (Article 47).
International commitments and constitutional obligations
bind the government to its responsibility of providing
social security benefits to all citizens. These are
covered by human rights and the constitutional right
to life. The government is violating the human rights
of people and the people’s right to life and equality
if it does not accept its obligations and responsibilities.
The government has to provide the standard social security
benefits and protections without payment of charges
or recovering the cost of social security. These benefits
include the right to life, the right to health, the
right to food, the right to education and the right
to shelter. Comprehensive social security is the right
of every citizen in this country.
|
