Vulnerability and Poverty: Contexts of Human Rights Violations

Contextos de violação de direitos humanos

Abstract

This article aims to explore the differences and emerging approaches to understanding contemporary aporophobia. We address the concepts of vulnerability and poverty, observing the inconsistencies caused by the inseparability of both social phenomena of inequality. In this context, the concept of “capabilities”, the synthesis that remains from the tension between the two concepts, is fundamental for us to understand how nations and societies expand or hinder the access of individuals in vulnerable situations to their capabilities to lead dignified lives. Indeed, while absolute poverty deals with the inability to consume the existential minimum to maintain life, vulnerability is sustained by factual elements of political minorities that do not participate in the improvement of life when they are guaranteed the consumable minimum duly met.