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Far from a rights-centred approach
Pilar Arcidiácono, Laura Royo
Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales (CELS)
After the crisis of the 1990s model and the sudden advent of the political, social and economic crisis of late 2001 and early 2002, the phenomenon of social exclusion became radically more pronounced. All the policies implemented since that time, aimed at reducing poverty indicators, have displayed contradictory elements which cast doubt on their validity and viability. The rights of millions of inhabitants to a decent life have become hostage to the inefficiency of these public policies.
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Since 2002 –
within the context of the worst socioeconomic crisis of the last few decades –
a series of social programmes have been
implemented which are still in force today. An attempt will be made here to
review these programmes from a rights-based perspective, analyzing the
strategies they use to overcome poverty and their main characteristics in the
light of human rights.
During the 1990s, the policies dictated by international financial institutions
were vigorously implemented in the country, to such an extent that after a few
years they transformed the way the economy operated and the conception of social
policy itself which was divorced from the guiding principles of human rights.
Towards the end of 2001 and early 2002, a severe institutional, political,
social and economic crisis broke out which led, among other things, to the fall
of the government, the abandonment of the currency convertibility system and a
sudden rise in the levels of poverty and extreme poverty, which in October 2002
affected 54.3% and 24.7% of the population, respectively.
Within this context, policies of income transfer were put into effect in the
country. The Unemployed Heads of Household Plan (PJJHD) became the first income
transfer programme to be widely applied. Subsequently, between 2003 and 2004,
the national government created new social programmes, among them the Senior
Citizens Programme (PAMM) and the Social Inclusion for Families Programme (PF).
The Unemployed Heads of Household Programme
The PJJHD emerged in April 2002 within the framework of the extremely severe
economic and institutional crisis. It consists of a subsidy of ARS 150 (USD 47)
to unemployed heads of households with dependent children under the age of 18.
In exchange, the head of household receiving the subsidy is required to
participate in training or in community or productive activities. According to
data from the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security, in June 2003
the number of recipients of the programme amounted to 1,992,497 people. Later, as will be seen below, there was a
drop in this number, due to the option which became available of transferring to
the Family Programme. It should be noted
that registration in the programme closed on 17 May 2002; therefore, it is no
longer possible to include new recipients, except by court order.
With regard to the commitment demanded of the head of household, this is not in
accordance with the idea of a ‘right’ established by the government,
inasmuch as the consideration of a right should not include a priori a demand for ‘something in return’.
As regards the amount of the subsidy – ARS 150 (USD 47) – it is evidently
insufficient to satisfy the basic food needs of a family and much less does it
allow access to the essential services which guarantee an adequate standard of
living. The exclusion of members of society from access to goods and social
services is not resolved merely by the distribution of economic aid in the form
of cash or vouchers; it requires a series of coordinated actions to deal with
such a complex problem as a whole.
Likewise, in establishing the same undifferentiated amount for every unemployed
head of household, the PJJHD made no allowances for variations in the
composition of the family group. Thus, the larger the number of persons in a
household, the smaller the effect of the subsidy in terms of achieving the
established objectives, which violates the right to equal treatment under the
law.
Furthermore, the programme does not include any procedures for administrative or
legal claims in cases where applications are rejected. The executive branch
rules only establish the municipality’s obligation to inform applicants of the
approval or rejection of their request, but do not provide information regarding
existing means to appeal a decision. This evidently suggests that the state’s
intention is to discourage the presentation of claims and keep the plan’s
allocations under discretionary management. Despite the lack of established
claim procedures, during the last few years numerous appeals have been filed in
which people who fulfil the conditions required by the regulations demanded to
be included in the PJJHD and have challenged the closing of registration (a
restriction which was not anticipated by legislation). It is important to
emphasize that all the cases brought to court have resulted in a decision
favourable to the claimant. However, the government has neither reviewed its
policy nor reopened registration in the programme.
It therefore can be seen that, in practice, the programme is not universal and
consequently causes arbitrary inequalities among different people who suffer
from the same extreme social marginalization. The programme has been limited to
one sector of the population – unemployed heads of household with children,
who were able to register prior to 17 May 2002 – and it was only broadened to
include persons over 70 years of age who live in a certain part of the country
almost a full year after it was put into operation. The rest of the population
in equally needy situations has been excluded.
Senior Citizens Programme
The PAMM, created in 2003, is intended for persons over 70 years of age, in a
state of social vulnerability, who lack the protection of contributory or
non-contributory social security. Applicants must show that they possess no
assets, income or resources which allow them to subsist, that neither they nor
their spouses are sheltered by any social security scheme, retirement fund or
non-contributory system whatsoever, and that they have no relatives who are
legally obliged to provide them with food, or that if they do, they are unable
to do so.
At present, the pensions provided through the programme amount to ARS 211 (USD
67) a month, and are complemented by health coverage through the Federal Health
Programme (PROFE). When the PAMM was launched , the minister of Social Development stated that this
programme would cover a total of 350,000 persons over 70 years of age. However,
in late 2004, the old-age pensions system only covered 63,319 persons.
As regards the principle of universality, it is worth mentioning that until the
PAMM was put into effect, the allocation of pensions was subject to budgetary
restrictions and a new benefit was only granted after an existing beneficiary
was removed from the register. As a consequence of the creation of the PAMM, the
physical target for the budgetary fulfilment of non-contributory old-age
pensions was raised, from 38,253 benefits granted in the fiscal year 2003 to
237,253 in the following period. However, a pronounced under-fulfilment of these
physical targets was recorded in 2004, when a total of only 62,820 beneficiaries
were covered, and in the budget for 2005 allocations were limited to 111,098
pensions, that is, 53% less than anticipated in the previous year’s budget.
Another questionable element from the point of view of rights is the procedure
used to incorporate persons to the PAMM. Potential recipients must apply in
person at the Personalized Attention Centre corresponding to the applicant’s
place of residence, but as geographic distribution of these centres is uneven,
in many cases the applicant must travel a long way to initiate the procedure,
thus incurring the transport expenses that this implies.
Social Inclusion for Families Programme
The PF is a social programme implemented by the Ministry of Social Development
since October 2004 with the aim of “promoting the protection and social
integration of families in a situation of social vulnerability and/or risk, in
the areas of health, education and the development of capabilities, making it
possible for them to exercise their basic rights.” The
only persons who can benefit from this programme are those who, fulfilling all
of the requirements, choose to transfer from the PJJHD to the PF, and only in
those areas in which the programme is in operation.
Basically, the programme has two components:
• A non-remunerative income which consists of a subsidy to families in a potential
situation of poverty, with children under the age of 19, and which, in return,
stipulates that the health of pregnant women and children should be attended to
and that children should remain within the educational system.
•
Family and community support in terms of education, health, employment training
and community development.
The official recipient of the subsidy must be the mother and her educational
level must be lower than a complete secondary school education. Therefore, if
the PJJHD recipient was a man, the right to the subsidy must be transferred to a
woman, except in cases in which men are single parents. As regards the
non-remunerative income, the amount of the subsidy is related to the composition
of the family group. Mothers with one dependent minor receive ARS 155 (USD 50);
with two dependent minors, ARS 185 (USD 58); three, ARS 215 (USD 68); four, ARS
245 (USD 78); five, ARS 275 (USD 87) and six, ARS 305 (USD 97).
In October 2004, the national government established a procedure for the
Ministries of Labour, Employment and Social Security and of Social Development
to classify recipients of the PJJDH according to their ‘employability’. It
was proposed that persons considered ‘unemployable’ should be transferred to
the PF. From the point of view of equality and non-discrimination, labelling
people as ‘employable’ or ‘unemployable’ is a cause for concern, since
it is discriminatory. As can be concluded from the description of the
socio-demographic characteristics of the recipients, this group would include
not only persons over the age of 60, but also women with family responsibilities
whose inactivity may be associated to difficulties in resolving the tension
between remunerated labour and non-remunerated family care, in a context in
which there are no specific policies to solve the problem of child care, except
to become ‘unemployable’. For them, the government suggests the PF.
Moreover, in conditioning income transfers on other demands – related to
children’s education or health – the programme is based on the premise,
though not explicitly, that it is necessary to generate a commitment in poor
people with regard to overcoming their poverty, as well as supposing that the
poor do not necessarily know what is best for themselves and for their families.
Thus, many programmes initially incorporate women as resources rather than as
beneficiaries, supposing, by means of this procedure, that a commitment towards
‘social participation’ will be generated in them. It should be underlined
that in terms of the minimum content of the right to an adequate standard of
living, the amount established is insufficient to satisfy the basic food needs
of the recipient family group. Likewise, to consider that the transfer is
incompatible with receiving any other income in the family group, beyond the
amount of a minimum, vital and changeable salary, is questionable, inasmuch as
this amount is inferior to the amount of the Total Basic Needs Basket
(approximately USD 147 for a family of five, two adults and three children).
The design and implementation of the PF can also be analyzed in the light of the
principle of universality. As regards
the geographical extension of the programme, it should be noted that up to May
2005, its application was limited to 17 provinces in the country (out of 23),
and did not cover the total population of the provinces, but was limited to 74
municipalities. There were no reasons to justify the exclusion of persons who,
although they fulfilled the requirements established by the regulations, could
not be included in the programme, merely because they lived in one of the
provinces or municipalities which had not been selected.
Finally, like the PJJHD, the PF does not provide procedures for administrative
or legal claims for the recipients; they can only make ‘enquiries and
complaints’ in different ways. In addition, in order to effect the transfer
from the PJJHD to the PF, people are obliged to sign a letter of commitment
which, among other things, states that if the commitments undertaken are not
fulfilled, the recipient may be struck off the PF, which could also happen once
the PF’s period of implementation and development is at an end, and that
furthermore, if for any reason the beneficiary stops receiving the benefit, no
claim is allowed. The fact that this ‘letter of commitment’ must be signed
makes it clear that the person receiving the subsidy cannot be considered as a
bearer of rights.
Final thoughts
Despite the significant size and scope of the social programmes put into effect,
the reduction of poverty between 2002 and 2006 can hardly be attributed to these
programmes, whose only contribution may be described more as ‘relief’ than
as a strategy to ‘overcome’ poverty.
The programmes analyzed do not adequately respect the standards of human rights
in general. Specifically, they display certain weaknesses in terms of ‘minimum
content’ of acceptable standards of social rights and in particular with
regard to the right to equality, non-discrimination, universality and access to
justice. Therefore, their design and implementation are conceived from a
perspective of benefits and not rights.
We believe that the problems affecting social integration are problems related
to rights – social and political – which are linked to the construction and
reproduction of citizenship. In consequence, social insertion strategies must,
on the one hand, adopt a format for the transfer of economic, social, political
and cultural resources tending to strengthen the social networks of those who
are currently excluded, in order to ensure their development and socioeconomic
and political autonomy; and, on the other hand, ensure political and
institutional characteristics in the government and in state actions which are
accessible and open to social preferences and control. Essentially, it is a
matter of creating conditions for a citizenship which is based on respect and
the strengthening of individual and social rights.
References
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