Social Watch launches its 2008 report: 'Rights is the answer'

On Wednesday 7 January in the European Parliament in Brussels, the international NGO network Social Watch launched its new report entitled "Rights is the answer", which argues that human rights provide the answer to the global financial crisis.

Previous crises have demonstrated that human rights are usually the first to be affected by recession periods. As Roberto Bissio, the coordinator of Social Watch, stated: ‘Human Rights have been violated as a direct consequence of the same global economic order that has created this chaos.' Thus, the world's poor will once again be victimised by the mistakes of the rich countries. Reed Brody, spokesperson of Human Rights Watch, also expressed fears of a slowing down in the efforts to support development and to eradicate poverty due to the fact that aid to countries in need will be neglected.

Furthermore, Mr. Bissio commented that ‘a rights-based approach to development with human rights, gender equality and decent work at its core must be the main guiding principle to any answer to the crisis'. The emphasis was placed particularly on gender quality by Antoinette Gosses, a representative of the European Commisssion. This aspect of human rights should be prioritised in order to enhance development and succeed in creating a fairer world. This would also help in maintaining an equilibrium that would play an important role in managing and even preventing these types of crises.

See more news at: http://www.eurostep.org/