Every person has a basic right to an adequate standard of living - the right to food, water, housing, health and education.

People living in poverty constantly experience deprivation, insecurity, exclusion and powerlessness.

Human rights are the key to releasing people from the trap of poverty.

Amnesty International Aims

The Demand Dignity campaign aims to hold governments and corporations to account for human rights violations that drive and deepen poverty. We defend every person's right to live in dignity with their human rights by:

"I am often asked what is the most serious form of human rights violations in the world today, and my reply is consistent: extreme poverty."

Mary Robinson

  • Pressuring governments to uphold their responsibility to ensure everyone can access their human rights

  • Holding corporations to account when the pursuit for profits results in human suffering

  • Ensuring the voices of people whose rights have been violated are heard by their governments and on the global stage.

Key issues

Maternal mortality

More than half a million women die each year of preganacy-related complications that could have been avoided with proper medical care at the right time.

Fees for health services, including essential obstetric services and contraception, create a barrier that women in poverty are often unable to overcome. When a woman dies, her family is impoverished further through loss of livelihoods and care and education of children.

Corporate accountability

"Poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings."

Nelson Mandela

The actions of corporations and other businesses have an enormous impact on the rights of individuals and communities.

Sometimes these impacts are positive, but too often human rights are violated when weak or non-existant systems of regulation fail to hold corporations accountable.

Many of the world's most resource-rich countries are also the poorest, particularly those that rely on their resources for national income.

Forced evications

Slums are home to more than 1 billion people worldwide. They share common characteristics such as poor sanitation, little or no clean water, overcrowding, and high levels of violence.

Many of the 200,000 slum communities are classifed "illegal", are residents are at constant risk of being forcibly removed and their homes destroyed by governments or corporations.

Justice is routinely denied because of discrimination and criminalisation of poverty. The voices of people living in slums are routinely ignored.