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| The Locust Effect: Why the End of Poverty Requires the End of Violence By Gary A. Haugen and Victor Boutros |
'If you sexually assault a child in Bolivia, you are more likely to die slipping in the shower or bathtub than you are of going to jail for your crime.'
'If you pick on the right people (low-caste people in poverty) and do it the right way (by disguising the slavery with a bogus debt) you can force people to work for you for no wages. You will be committing a serious crime under Indian law, but you are more likely to be struck by lightning than you are of going to prison for your crime.'
- Pg. 126, The Locust Effect, Haugen and Boutros
I've been extensively interested in the discussions revolving around global poverty for a few years now, and have read as many books and articles, watched as many talks and documentaries, as I can to educate myself upon causes, consequences, implications, solutions, sustainability etc. Never, however, have I explicitly come across the identification of violence being intrinsically linked to the cycle of poverty. Not once. Of course I've read passing comments about genocides, war crimes of sexual violence, and property grabbing, but it's only ever been noted, not explored; such comments tend to pale in light of the archetypal and predominant focus upon issues like hunger, unemployment, famine and so on. Just think: when was the last time you watched/read an advert alerting you to the devastating effect of corrupt criminal justice systems in developing nations? Hard to visualise. I'm almost certain you can recall an advert regarding hunger or malaria, on the contrary. This is not to say that issues such as hunger or AIDS are not problems which affect those in poverty, and further that they are unimportant and the work being done to address them is superficially conceited. No. But how do you address problems such as these sustainably without addressing the framework of national (and local) justice systems which, when corrupt and undeveloped/untrained, merely hinder progress and (in a targeted way) lock those already living in poverty in further poverty?
"About 90% of global malaria deaths occur among the very poor, so one might think that poverty causes malaria deaths. But, of course, poverty does not cause malaria - mosquitoes and the malaria parasite cause malaria. The difference is the poor don't get something that the rest of the world does get: mosquito abatement and prophylaxis protection from the malaria parasite. As a result, the poor die from malaria and the non-poor do not. Likewise, poverty does not cause violence against the poor; violent people do. But if you are poor and living in the developing world, you don't get what everyone else in the world gets - namely, basic law enforcement to protect you from violent people." [Pg. 117]
Watch this: Gary Haugen: The hidden reason for poverty the world needs to address now (TED Talk).
Violence is not the sole cause of poverty. Violence is, nonetheless, exacerbated by poverty. And the lack of structured, coherent and reliable justice systems and law enforcement exacerbates violence against the poor. If someone cannot afford legal support, if they are subject to police corruption, if they do not know the right people, they are easy targets for violence; in many developing nations, that someone is typically subjected to this position by their poverty. Violence exacerbates poverty.
Haugen does not focus upon violence from war or conflict, which, as he points out (page 43), has already been 'identified by some, especially Paul Collier in The Bottom Billion, as a major source of poverty or development trap'; instead, he points towards common, everyday violence in otherwise relatively stable countries. Such ranges from police bribery and abuse, rape and sexual abuse, and property grabbing, to slavery. You cannot effectively address global poverty in exclusion of addressing everyday violence against the poor simultaneously. It won't work in the long term for the majority, and, Haugen demonstrates again and again, it doesn't work - it has not worked. Take, for instance, the experience of Gopinath, a young man from Tamil Nadu, India. As Haugen narrates, surrounding him and his family, there was a local subsidised school for his children to attend, a hospital to treat 'the many ailments and diseases from which his malnourished family was suffering' (pg. 73) and other vital social services aimed at addressing the poverty of families like his. Great! Except they were rendered useless by violence - trapped in slavery due to a false debt by the lure of a $10 loan for food, his children were never released from the quarry to attend school, his family were slapped for even asking to go to the hospital, and through violence, they were never permitted to leave and make use of whatever other social services were developed to address the implications of their poverty.
And what can the law/legal system do to help those like Gopinath?
The past is of more relevance than we like to think, I think. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, that it may be true that the law cannot change the heart but it can restrain the heartless. It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me but it can keep him from lynching me and I think that is pretty important. Look to other things that people take for granted and masquerade, such as the Holocaust of WW2. "Never Again"; "Lest We Forget"; "Learn and Remember". Of course what the Nazi's perpetrated is disgusting, and we vow never to stand for it. The Holocaust may be defined as the systematic destruction and slaughter on a mass scale, racially targeted at the Jews amongst others. What was the Rwandan genocide of 1994? What distinguishes this so starkly from the Holocaust, other than the fact that it occurred so recently in many of our life times? Where were we when this genocide was carried out? And these? Or these? Elie Wiesel, a survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau, writes that we must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. If there is a way to help those victimised by violence and targeted abuse, why wouldn't we address it? Though on a more common, individual level and regularity, hidden and less racially motivated, violence against those in poverty is not something to be hidden or identified unimportant, nor completely dissimilar from neutrality towards the targeted abuse of a genocide.
'What eventually emerged for me, and changed me, was a point of simple clarity about the nature of violence and the poor. What was so clear to me was the way these very impoverished Rwandans at their point of most desperate need, huddled against those advancing machetes in that church, did not need someone to bring them a sermon, or food, or a doctor, or a teacher, or a micro-loan. They needed someone to restrain the hand with the machete - and nothing else would do.' (Introduction pg. x)
The figure 6 million is likely to hold meaning to most people.
What about 35 million?
"Experts believe that there are actually more slaves in the world today than ever before in human history. It's true that a smaller proportion of humanity is held in slavery than ever before, and a smaller proportion of the world's economy is generated by slavery than ever before - but, in absolute numbers, the world has never seen so many people in slavery at one time. In fact, historians tell us that about 11 million slaves were extracted from Africa during four hundred years of the trans-Atlantic slave trade - which is as little as half of the number of people held in slavery in our world this year." [pg. 68]
I realise I've made no mention of the root of the problem; Haugen essentially notes that the legal justice systems in many developing nations are under-developed, unsuited, outdated, corrupt and manipulated. The laws are often there, yes. But are they actually enforced to protect the common people? Three points are made by Haugen in relation to the problem: first, the systems don't work because they aren't intended to work for the common people having merely been inherited from the colonial period in which justice systems were designed to protect the imperial rulers from the common people. The person sitting in the imperial, protected seat has merely changed from a colonial power to a privileged native, in many cases. Second, elites in developing nations acknowledge the corruption of the public justice system, so they have abandoned them and employed private systems, which further isolate the poor who cannot afford to protect themselves. Thirdly, no significant 'meaningful effort' (pg. 198) has been made to address the problem of violence against the poor.
Of course, there is no simple way to address the issue instantaneously. Developing a fair, rule-based, effective legal justice system is not going to be without complication or limitation, but significant movements have been made by groups such as Haugen's own International Justice Mission, which is a global human rights agency that aims to protect the poor from violence. But all justice systems develop from somewhere and, typically, this somewhere is a start of corruption and mistrust. London was considered one of the most dangerous cities in the world with a feared police force throughout much of the 19th century. Now it's ranked as one of the safest cities in the world. Haugen cites similar transformations in the developed world (pages 215-19), highlighting that development and progress is plausible.
I think a key movement to combatting the so-called 'Locust Effect' is to increase awareness of the reality of violence amidst poverty, encouraging wider support and understanding. Why is it not more widely acknowledged? The World Bank is cited (pg. 256) as not endorsing solutions to the issue of legal corruption as the risks are too high. Perhaps it's because we, living in nations where security is not something we are typically concerned with or even aware of, cannot relate to it or understand it? Is it just easier to raise help for addressing problems like hunger and unemployment? But surely it isn't fair to ignore the problem, which, Haugen so successfully highlights, has significant implications for the fight against global poverty.
His book is certainly an eye opener, and a step towards this.
'Likewise in our era, efforts to spur economic development and to alleviate poverty among the poor in the developing world without addressing the forces of violence that destroy and rob them can "seem like a mocking". To provide Laura and Yuri with the promise of schools without addressing the forces of sexual violence that make it too dangerous to walk to or attend school seems like a mocking. To give Caleb job training or Bruno a micro-loan for his belt business without protect them from being arbitrarily thrown into prison where Caleb loses his job and Bruno loses his business seems like a mocking. To provide Susan with tools, seeds, and training to multiply crop yields on her land without protecting her from being violently thrown off that land seems like a mocking. To provide Laura and Marimba with AIDS education and training on making safe sexual choices without addressing the violence in the slums and brick factories where women don't get to make choices seems like a mocking. To establish a rural medical clinic in the area where Gopinath is held as a slave without addressing the violent forces that refuse to allow him to leave the quarry and take his dying kid to a doctor seems like a mocking.'
- page 98, The Locust Effect
Perhaps what the fight against global poverty needs is a new perspective and focus upon wider implicating issues like violence, with a broader stance encompassing a multitude of different expertise, including legal workers, economists, charity workers, transnational organisations, local organisations and less obvious candidates like social scientists and psychologists. Violence is certainly not something to ignore - you wouldn't ignore a swarm of locusts coming to devour all of your crops and land, your life work and sustenance, would you? Let's not ignore the swarm hovering over the global poor.
C
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