Despite progress, one-parent families still facediscrimination in Ireland, writes Karen Kiernan
The term "human rights" often conjures up images of people facing political repression and hardship somewhere far away. In reality, basic human rights are being denied closer to home.
In a just and fair society, all citizens are equal under the law and have equal access to a fair standard of living and to opportunities for growth and development.
By their very definition of universality, human rights are applicable to every human being, everywhere. Yet, in the prosperous and vibrant Ireland of today, many remain disadvantaged - legally, economically and socially - and this is a denial of their basic human rights.
When One Family (formerly known as Cherish) and other organisations were successful in their campaign to remove the concept of illegitimacy from Irish law in 1987, the victory was not seen in terms of human rights, but rather as one of equality for one-parent families and particularly for their children.
Since then, the global community has increasingly come to understand that equality, along with equity, accountability, empowerment and participation, form the principles of every human being's basic human rights. Unfortunately, such human rights are not universal in Ireland today.
The constitutional definition of the family continues to enshrine the unequal status experienced by non-marital families.
But this is not the only hurdle preventing one-parent families from accessing their rights. In addition to providing civil and political rights, human rights also have socioeconomic ramifications.
According to the 2005 EU Survey on Income and Living Conditions, one-parent families remain three times more likely to live in poverty than other families.
In the plentiful days of the Celtic Tiger, we can no longer see poverty as a simple issue of there not being enough to go around. As international poverty eradication campaigns have shown, without adequate political, economic and social change, there will never be enough resources to make poverty history.
Poverty is fundamentally a denial of basic human rights, an unquestioning acceptance that some will have and some will not. Is it really just a coincidence that one-parent families continue to be one of the poorest groups in Ireland?
Until Irish society and those who govern it accept that life for many one-parent families remains a battle to overcome interconnected systemic inequalities, discrimination and poverty, we cannot claim to protect the rights of all families or to cherish all the State's children equally.
Placing poverty within the domain of human rights is crucial to our ability to change for the better. Yet human rights is not just about conferring rights. Human rights also impose responsibilities - internationally, nationally, locally and individually. They force the State, society, those who provide services and each and every one of us to change the way we view the world and interact with others. We must see human rights as an opportunity for positive change and extend them beyond the realm of the legal experts and into our policy making, service provision and daily lives.
It has been claimed by some that to extend a guarantee of human rights to all would cause major strain on the Exchequer. Yet it has been proven time and again that investment in change and the resulting empowerment of individuals and groups leads to a reduction in long-term dependency on the State.
An investment in early childhood education is a perfect example of how investing in children's rights at the outset leads to a more positive outcome for everyone, providing people with the tools to create a better future and to contribute effectively to society - and the Exchequer.
In the current economic boom, we, as a nation, demand that all citizens participate equally in society. Yet we do so without addressing the fundamental truth that one in six families, ie one-parent families, are being hampered in their efforts to reach their full potential.
Human rights-based approaches to tackling issues such as poverty and social exclusion in Ireland will only increase in relevance. A human rights-based approach provides a sound and compelling argument that one-parent families do experience inequalities and discrimination relative to other families. The Government must recognise that everyone has economic, social, cultural and political rights, and it is their duty to protect and promote these.
One Family's campaigning and advocacy network publishes Human Rights and One-Parent Families today.
This publication is designed to empower those who want Ireland to become a place in which one-parent families no longer face inequality, poverty or discrimination to use human rights to make change happen.
As Mary Robinson writes in the foreword: "The key to systemic and long-term change is to empower people to change the world for themselves . . . the structural inequality and disadvantage faced by one-parent families is not merely a problem of circumstance, but a denial of basic human rights."
Karen Kiernan is the director of One Family, the national organisation working with one-parent families. www.onefamily.ie