Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime. (Aristotle).
Poverty is general scarcity or dearth or the state of one who lacks a certain amount of material possession or money, it refers to the condition of not having the basic needs such as clean water, education, clothing and shelter. This universe is replete with innumerable masses who are unable to afford the bare minimum necessities of life. They live below the poverty line and even face the problem of getting a square meal. Poverty is characterized by health, hunger, education, housing utilities and violence. We can reduce poverty by promoting industrialization, prevalence of education, division of agricultural lands among tenants and by dumping extremism and feudalism.
One thirds of deaths are due to poverty related causes. Most of the women and children have died as a result of poverty since 1990. According to World Health Organization (WHO) hunger and malnutrition are the single gravest threats to the world’s public health and malnutrition is the biggest contributor to child mortality. Those who live in poverty have also been shown to have a far greater likelihood of having or incurring a disability within their life time. Infectious disease such as malaria and tuberculosis can perpetuate poverty by diverting health and economic resources from investment and productivity.
Rises in the costs of living making poor people less able to afford items. Poor people spend a great portion of their budgets on food than richer people. As a result poor households and those near the poverty threshold can be particularly vulnerable to increase in food prices. For example, in late 2007 increase in the price of grains led to food riots in some countries. The World Bank warned that 100 million people were at the risk of sinking deeper into poverty. Threats to the supply of food may also be caused by drought and the water crisis. Intensive farming often leads to a vicious cycle of exhaustion of soil fertility and decline of agricultural yields.
Research has found that there is a high risk of educational underachievement for children who are from low-income housing circumstances. This is often a process that begins in primary school for some less fortunate children. There are indeed many explanations for why students tend to drop out of school. One is the condition of which they attend school. Schools in poverty stricken areas have conditions that hinder children from learning in a safe environment. Poverty often drastically affects children’s success in school. A child’s “home activities, preferences, mannerisms” must align with the world and in the cases that they don’t these students are at a disadvantage in the school and most importantly in the classroom.
Poverty increases the risk of homelessness. Slum dwellers, who make up one third of the world’s urban population live in a poverty, no better, if not worse, than rural people who are the traditional focus of the poverty in the developing world according to a report by the United Nations.
Water utility subsides to tend to subsidize water consumption by those connected to the network which typically includes the richer segment of the population.
According to experts, many women become victims of trafficking, the most common form of which is prostitution, as a means of survival and economic desperation. Deterioration of living conditions can often compel children to abandon school to contribute to the family income, putting them at the risk of being exploited.
Shortly, it can be concluded that poverty has totally engulfed the world in its mouth where escape is difficult but not impossible. Poverty is a multidimensional problem that includes the physical, social, mental and psychological dimensions of human beings. The causes of poverty are also multifaceted. Though these causes can be classified according to their extent and scope, the real causes of poverty are deliberate acts and choices of human beings who are motivated by greed.