Lesson video

Hi, my name is Miss Speakman.

We're on lesson 9 of 14 of the Human Rights unit.

And in today's lesson we'll be looking at poverty and its causes.

The lesson we're about to complete contains reference to exploitation and people trafficking.

For some people, this will be a sensitive topic.

If that applies to you, you may want to do the rest of this lesson with a trusted adult nearby who can provide support.

So, in this lesson today, we're going to look at the problem of poverty, overall.

Consider the responsibility of those living in poverty, learning about exploitation and the situation of that in Britain, looking at views on fair pay and learn about people trafficking.

So it's a lot to cover today in our lesson.

And I really hope that you enjoyed this lesson and find this lesson interesting.

Let's get ourselves ready for our lesson.

First of all, then please let's make sure you've got a pen or a pencil, a piece of paper or an exercise book, and a different coloured pen ready for corrections.

Also making sure you've got a nice, clear, quiet working space, please.

So your TV and music off, phone to one side if you're not using it for the lesson and making sure you've got a quiet desk space to work so that you can concentrate.

If you need to get any of those things together, please pause the video now then unpause when you are ready to move on.

Okay, amazing.

Let's get started then.

So some key definitions to start off with, poverty and extreme poverty.

Now poverty means not having enough material, possessions or money for the basic needs.

So, material possessions might be things like food, money, clothing, and also of course we've got money as well.

So material possessions often can include money, but we talk about money and material possessions are food, water, clothing, etc.

Then extreme poverty is when essentially these people in extreme poverty live on less than $1.

90 a day.

So what I'd like you to do is to write down these two definitions, please.

They're key definitions for our lesson today, and then once you've written them down unpause when you're ready to move on.

Okay, great.

Thank you for writing this down.

Let's move forward then.

So some key facts about poverty, 'cause I think it's really important for us to sort of really get the idea of context when we're talking about the ideas of poverty in today's lesson.

And then in subsequent lessons, we're looking at the importance of giving money to the poor and the uses of wealth.

Let's look at some key facts then about poverty.

Around 10% of the world's population lives on less than $1.

90 a day.

That is essentially saying that one in 10 people in our world live in extreme poverty.

It's around 10% of the world's population.

Now, bearing in mind that we have over 7 billion people in our world, that is a lot of people living in extreme poverty.

Over 750 million people lack access to clean water.

They don't have access to clean water.

Over 2,000 people die daily from diseases linked to on clean water.

And it is likely that poverty rates will increase for the first time since 1990, because of COVID-19.

Now, as I'm filming this, this is August of 2020.

And that's quite an alarming figure to be essentially be told, "For the first time in a long time, poverty rates will be increasing because of the impact of COVID." So what I'd like you to do is to have a think about what you think causes poverty.

So I'd like you to do is to pause the video, spend about three minutes on this.

Can you write down as many causes as you can think of of poverty? So, anything if anything that might cause someone to be living in poverty? So pause the video now, please.

Spend about three minutes writing down your thoughts then unpause when you are ready to move on.

Okay.

Thank you for writing down your thoughts, here's a list of some of the causes of poverty that I can think of.

First of all, is lack of food and clean drinking water.

You might say, "Doesn't that follow from poverty, does poverty cause that?" But actually, lack of food and clean drinking water can actually be a cause of poverty too.

Where there's a lack of food, people might not have not have the energy to work, which means they can't earn money.

Or because of a lack of clean drinking water, they might suffer from diseases that essentially wouldn't be too much for our bodies to handle such as a sickness like diarrhoea, but with people living in those countries with a lack of clean drinking water, things like diarrhoea can be a cause of death in those countries.

And so there may be many people who have a lack of food and clean drinking water who does not well enough to them work, which then essentially means they are not able to afford the necessities in life.

And for those countries where perhaps people don't have clean drinking water, it might mean that someone has to go for hours.

Walk for hours to go and get water, which means that they therefore cannot work because they spend most of their time collecting water for their family.

Things like greed, people taking more than they need to can be a cause of poverty.

A lack of infrastructure.

So building facilities, etc.

When you don't have good facilities like hospitals, it means that people are more likely to get ill and not be able to work.

Country's borrowing money at a high interest rate is a huge cause of poverty.

Many countries who can't afford necessities or the basic things for their country may borrow money from countries that can afford to lend money.

And that's at high interest rates.

So essentially they'll be paying back more than they borrowed and they get themselves into debt.

We might see examples of corrupt government leaders, where leaders essentially take aid money and don't actually distribute it out to the people that need it.

LEDC's, so Less Economically Developed Countries, where people often work for little pay.

So, they might work very, very long hours and maybe only get about one pay per day equivalent of what we would work for.

Things like war can cause poverty due to destruction of environment and also people dying, which could be a cause of poverty.

Natural disasters are often a big cause of poverty because they essentially destroy large areas, homes, buildings, environments, facilities, etc, and unemployment.

When people can't work, they obviously don't have enough money.

Well, what we're now going to do is move on to some multiple choice, quick five questions.

Why I think it's really good about this is a really good way of testing what we know so far and you don't have to write anything down, which sounds great; doesn't it? It's a really good way of testing what you know.

I essentially give you a question.

There are two possible answers.

I give you a countdown of three seconds, then after three seconds, I ask you to point at the screen or say out loud, which one you think is the correct answer.

Then we keep going through them until you're done.

And we can say, "Yeah, we know all of this." Or we can say, "Well, actually there's some things I need to go back to." So, let's get started on those.

Extreme poverty is classed as when people live on less than $1.

90 a day.

Is that true or false? Three, two, one.

That is true.

That's what we call is extreme poverty.

It's likely that poverty rates will continue to fall.

Is that true or false? Three, two, one.

That's false.

So with the COVID-19 pandemic, it's likely that poverty will increase.

It's easy to pinpoint the exact causes of poverty.

Is that true or false? Three, two, one.

That's false.

So we kind of think about some causes of poverty, but it's really hard to say in each situation, what's the exact cause, there's often a mixture of these thoughts.

Some poor countries are in debt from borrowing money with a high interest rate.

Is that true or false? Three, two, one.

Yes.

That is true.

So some poor countries have borrowed money from rich countries with a high interest rate, which means they're therefore in debt.

Natural disasters can be a cause of poverty.

Is that true or false? Three, two, one.

Yes, that is true as it can be a large cause of poverty.

People do not experience poverty in the UK.

Is that true or false? Three, two, one.

That's false.

We didn't explicitly cover this, but there are people who live in poverty in the UK.

Perhaps some people even live within extreme poverty.

It is perhaps it would be not as common as we see in some other countries, but that does not mean that people don't live in poverty in the UK.

What we're going to move onto now is looking at different views on the responsibility of those living in poverty.

Okay.

We're now going to look at the responsibility of those living in poverty.

And you might say, "Miss Speakman, you've got this wrong, responsibility for those living in poverty.

Do you mean the responsibility of those to help those in poverty?" And actually no, what we're going to look at is sort of the views that some people might have about.

Okay.

So people living in poverty, what's the responsibility do those people have in particular, maybe to help themselves? So in Christianity, it does actually encourage the poor to try and get out of poverty if they can.

So let's think about it this way.

Someone might be in poverty and Christianity may teach that if they can doing things such as voluntary work, work experience, training courses, things that will help them gain new skills.

Perhaps maybe help with employment, should be done if they can so that they can try as much as possible to help their own situation.

It might be as well, encouraging those who are in poverty because of things like debt or addiction to get help for this because of their poverty, rather than just giving money to those people who are living in poverty.

And so, although that might sound quite harsh, many Christians are saying, "Look, it's probably the case that this doesn't apply.

This doesn't apply to lots and lots of different people, but there are so many people who live in extreme poverty, who for this sort of advice and help wouldn't make much of a difference so that it wouldn't work.

It wouldn't help that family or that situation." So Christine's encourage it where it's possible.

And so does Islam.

So Islam says that you should carefully budget and it says, "Take your adornment at every masjid," now 'masjid' is another word for a mosque, "And eat and drink, but be not excessive, indeed, He likes not those who commit access." Essentially saying that for any instances where someone is in poverty because of greed or because of addiction or because of gambling, etc.

That those people should essentially deal with the root cause of their poverty to help themselves out of poverty.

However, both Christianity and Islam, would fully accept that.

It's probably for a vast number of people that that's just not possible.

That saying to them, "Do voluntary work or get help with your addiction," etc.

That alone that's not going to be enough to help them with living in poverty.

So, both Christianity and Islam encourage generous giving.

And we'll talk about that more in a couple more lessons.

When we talk about attitudes to wealth and helping those who are poor.

So in Islam, for example, in generous giving is encouraged through Zakah.

So giving 2.

5% of your idle wealth at the end of the year.

Which is then distributed out to those people who need it most.

Islam also has sadaqah, which is voluntary additional charity, which is given when and if it can be.

And also Shia Muslims will give Khums, which is one fifth of monetary gains on top of Zakah.

So, yes, there might be some idea that those living in poverty have some form of responsibility to help themselves where they can, but for the vast majority of people that that won't apply to, both Christianity and Islam say that it's important to give generously and to help those living in poverty as they're all part of God's creation.

What we're going to do now is we're going to pause and do some questions together just to bring this all together.

Just so we understand what we've looked at so far in poverty.

And after that, we'll move on to looking at exploitation.

What I would like you to do is to pause the video to complete your task.

I want you to spend about five minutes on these questions.

What do we mean by poverty? List for potential causes of poverty, and what is meant by those in poverty also having responsibility? You've got some sentence starters there for you as well.

So if you're struggling, you can use that to help you.

So I want you to pause the video.

Please answer these questions unpause when you are ready to go through the answers, please.

Okay.

If you can see this slide then I'm assuming then that you are ready for corrections, please have a different colour pen out ready for corrections, and we'll go through the answers together.

If you're not quite finished, you can rewind the video, go back to it and then come back to us when you're ready to go through the answers.

Okay, let's have a look then.

So poverty's where people don't have enough material, possessions or money for the basic needs.

Four examples of causes of poverty are countries borrowing money at high levels of interest, natural disasters, greed, and unemployment.

Of course, that question you could have had a number of other causes too.

So you don't have to have exactly like mine.

And three, the responsibilities of those living in poverty means that where people are able to, they should work to try and get themselves out of poverty.

This might be something like doing voluntary work to get work experience or attending training courses to get more skills or getting help if poverty is a result of debt or addiction.

However, both Christians and Muslims, accept this will not always be the case for many examples of poverty.

So encourage giving in those cases to help.

So, if you need to make any corrections, you're going to need to do that with your different coloured pen, please.

Then it doesn't have to be exactly word for word like mine, but as long as you've got these key points in there.

So what I'll like you to do please is to pause the video, and make those corrections then unpause when you're ready to move on.

Now we're going to consider exploitation, specifically the situation in the UK.

Across the world, we can see many examples of people working long hours for very little pay.

Some place people might.

In some places around the world, some people may be working on as much or as little as.

Sorry, one pay a day for the work that they do.

And of course we would say that that's a form of exploitation.

People may be made to work so hard for very little pay.

In the UK, however, there have been things introduced, trying to address where people might be underpaid for the work that they do.

So the UK introduced what's called the national minimum wage in 1999.

Essentially what this does is it fixes the minimum amount someone can be paid within their job per hour.

So for example, if you get a sort of a part time retail job, you will be told, you'll get x amount per hour.

There is a minimum amount that that job can offer per hour.

This actually increases.

Sometimes it might be that sometimes the government increases national minimum wage sort of reflect society to reflect living situations.

But essentially what this means is if someone is paid less than minimum wage, then actually they can bring this up with the employer and say, "Well, you're not actually paying me fairly for this job." So both Christians and Muslims would probably support this as they would say, "We know to pay people fairly for their work is the right thing to do.

That's justice." Both Christianity and Islam teaches that God is just, and would want people to be treated fairly.

And so you'd probably find that all Christians, if not all, most Christians and most Muslims would say, "Yes, we support the introduction of a national minimum wage." Although it is illegal in the UK, however, many people can become a target of excessive interest on loans.

You may have heard the term 'Loan shark', for example.

It is illegal to charge excessive interest on a loan.

So for example, saying, "I'm going to borrow 200 pounds and I'm going to charge you 50%.

Probably even more than like 1,000% interest.

So you end up paying a vast amount more than you actually borrowed.

The reason behind this is because is exploitation when you're borrowing money.

Often when these people borrow money in this way like a loan, it's because they cannot afford certain things or need a large sum of money to pay for something.

And it's very unlikely then that person will be able to pay back that loan with that level of high interest.

And so it's actually illegal to charge excessive interest on loans.

And although it is illegal, we do see people sort of at time use 'Loan shark' actually still practising this.

It's really important sort of put this into context too.

One woman who borrowed 500 pounds off a 'Loan shark' ended up owing 88,000 pounds.

That is excessive interest.

And that is exploitation, borrowing 500 pounds at the very most you'd hope; wouldn't you? That you essentially give back 500 pounds, perhaps, maybe a little bit of interest.

Just because that person lend you money that you needed, but 88,000 pounds.

I don't know the percentage of that in terms of what percentage of interest that was, but that is excessive.

So, essentially the reason why 'Loan sharks' still sort of operate in this way is that people are often very vulnerable when they get to the situation they're borrowing money off of a 'Loan shark'.

Perhaps, maybe banks will not loan them because they cannot afford to repay.

And so 'Loan sharks' often target vulnerable people who they know, you know, will not be able to pay that money back.

And the reason behind that is often we find with illegal excessive interest on loans.

People can get quite horrible about it in terms of asking for repayments, etc.

So, exploitation situation in the UK is of course, nowhere near like being paid one pay a day for some of the work you do for working long hours.

We do have things in the UK to try and make things fair in terms of the national minimum wage.

But we can still see examples within the UK where people are exploited by 'Loan sharks' and the illegal asking of excessive interest on loans.

So, what I would like you to do now is we're going to do some multiple choice quick five questions just to see what we've learnt so far.

So I'm going to give you a question.

There'll be two possible answers.

I'll give you a countdown of three seconds.

You point at the screen, or you say out loud, whichever one you're more comfortable with, we check the answers and then we move on.

So, shall we get started? The minimum wage was introduced in 1999.

Is that true or false? Three, two, one.

Yes.

That is true.

The minimum wage was introduced in 1999.

That meant that the legal minimum wage is set for the same for every single person per hour.

The minimum wage sets a maximum amount someone can be paid per hour.

Is that true or false? Three, two, one.

Good, is false.

It's a minimum amount someone could be paid per hour.

Both Christians and Muslims are likely to support the introduction of a national minimum wage.

Is that true or false? Three, two, one.

Good.

That is true.

Both Christians are Muslims are likely to say, "This is an example of fair pay and therefore would support it." Charging excessive interest on loans is legal in the UK.

Is that true or false? Three, two, one.

That is false, charging excessive interest on loans is illegal in the UK.

People in the UK are still exploited by being charged excessive interest on loans.

Is that true or false? Three, two, one.

Good.

That is true.

So yes, it is illegal in the UK to charge excessive interest on loans.

We do see still some people doing this illegally and this often is the case when people are vulnerable.

So when perhaps people may not be allowed to get loans from the bank, may turn to illegal money lenders.

Well done if you got all of your multiple choice, quick five questions correct.

We're now going to move on to looking at the idea of human trafficking.

Moving now onto people trafficking, we'll start off with the key definition.

So people trafficking is also known as human trafficking and I'll use these two words interchangeably.

This is essentially the illegal movement of people.

This could be forced labour, or it could be sexual exploitation.

Like I said at the beginning of this, and this will be a sensitive topic.

So, if you feel like this will be a sensitive topic for you now, I've given you the definition.

Please make sure you do have a trusted adult nearby who can support you.

So we're going to be looking at what essentially people trafficking is and Christian and Muslim views on this.

I want you to, first of all, from you, please write down the definition.

So pause the video for me, please.

Write down the definition and then unpause when you're ready to move on.

Okay.

Thank you for writing down the definition.

So, let's move on.

People trafficking.

This may be where someone from a poor country will pay to be smuggled to a more developed country.

Which is the illegal movement of people.

So, someone may be living in poverty and be essentially save up a lot of money in order to pay someone to smuggle them across to a more developed country to give them a better chance of life.

That's going to be looking for work, looking to work illegally in the country, but then being able to provide for their family.

This is essentially where someone is exploited when they're in a very vulnerable position, these people, they may be caught, they may not be caught.

But either way they are doing something illegal because they are in desperate need.

It could, however, people trafficking be an example of where someone is sold into sexual exploitation.

Essentially taken and sold for sexual exploitation.

We do actually still see examples of modern slavery.

So people, the illegal enslavement of people, and actually in some cases as perhaps, maybe as horrible as it sounds, the harvesting of human organs.

So people taken and illegally have performed on them operations, which remove organs to perhaps use or to sell.

So of course, this is a very sensitive topic, but it is very important that we know that these things still happen in our world today, where perhaps people are exploited either because they are vulnerable or want to have a better life.

Perhaps maybe they are taken for sexual exploitation where people would get money out of selling them sexual exploitation, slavery, but also the harvesting of human organs.

So they're just some examples of people trafficking.

So, what we're going to look at as Christian and Muslim views on this, I would imagine that you probably have some idea already about what Christianity and Islam would say about this, but we'll look at specific teachings just so we can get this really nice and clear about what would Christianity, what would Islam teach about people trafficking? And what sort of verses and teachings can we use to explain this? So Christians and Muslim beliefs about people trafficking, we're going to start again with Galatians.

I use this verse all the time for the Human Rights unit.

So, you may have seen one of my videos before, therefore you know I'm going to use this verse, I think you probably would know by now.

"There is no difference between Jews and Gentiles," Gentiles being the non-Jew.

"Between slaves and free people between men and women; you are all one in union with Christ Jesus." Many Christians say, "Look, human trafficking is.

." Essentially, there should be no difference between men and women, slaves, free, etc.

You should not be treating anybody unfairly.

You should not be exploiting anybody.

And most, if not all Christians will say that people trafficking is wrong.

You are treating people unfairly.

You're treating them as a commodity.

As something to be gained from rather than treating them as a human beings, inhumane.

We also have a verse from Psalms, which is; "Defend the rights of the poor and the orphans, be fair to the needy and the helpless." And I think we can say in these situations, those who are a victim of people trafficking are in need, they are the needy and they are the helpless and many Christians say they should be doing whatever they can to try and target those people who are committing people trafficking, who are exploiting people in this way.

So perhaps if you might be giving to charity.

It might be raising awareness.

It might be lobbying governments to make them understand, and to pass more laws about it.

Now, Sharia law in Islam calls for the welfare and wellbeing of all human beings and Muslims believe that Sharia law comes from God and can never be unjust.

If Allah is saying that the welfare and wellbeing of all human beings is important, many Muslims say because of this, it is very important that people are made aware about people trafficking and that people look to stop it and to do whatever they can 'cause it's not treating human beings as human beings.

And we also have the verse in the Qur'an which says, "Indeed, Allah orders justice and good conduct and giving to relatives and forbids immorality and bad conduct and oppression." We could argue that people trafficking, human trafficking is oppressive.

It takes away the rights of people.

There's no right of freedom.

People have a right to freedom within the human rights declaration.

And we can say here that people aren't free.

They are enslaved in many cases.

And therefore, many Muslims would say, "Look, the human trafficking, people trafficking is completely wrong and they should be looking to try and help those who are in that situation.

So what you're going to do now is you're going to pause.

I'm going to do some questions to bring this together.

Since you're going to be testing you and getting you to think about how some of those verses links specifically in with people trafficking, and human trafficking.

So let's move on to the question.

Okay.

What I would like you to do here for me please, is to answer the following questions.

Spend about five minutes on these questions.

We've got a verse here that says, "Defend the rights of the poor and the orphans, be fair to the needy and the helpless." From Psalms. You're going to explain how this verse shows Christian views on human human trafficking.

Then we've got, "Indeed Allah orders justice, and good conduct and giving to relatives and forbids immorality and bad conduct and oppression." From the Qur'an.

You're going to explain how this verse shows Islamic views on human trafficking.

I want you to spend about five minutes on this please.

Writing down your thoughts.

Please write in full sentences.

So pause the video now for me, please.

Then unpause when you are ready to look through the answers together with me.

Okay.

If you can see this slide, then I'm assuming you you're ready for corrections.

Please make sure you've got your different coloured pen out ready for corrections.

And we're going to go through it together.

So, let's have a look.

So, for the first one, the verse from Psalms, Christian views on human trafficking, this verse shows Christians should be defending the rights of those who are exploited, including those who are involved in people trafficking.

So, many Christians would say they, of course the needy, the helpless, they are all those who need help.

So you should be looking to help those who are involved in people trafficking.

In the second verse, which is from the Qur'an, showing Muslim views.

This verse shows Muslims that they should not be oppressing people and should look for justice for all people.

Human trafficking is unjust.

So many Muslims believe they should help those who are in that situation.

If you need to make any corrections here, can you please pause the video now and do that for me.

Again, it doesn't have to be word for word like mine, but some key things in there, of course.

You know, if you've written something along the lines of, Christians believe that people trafficking is okay, then of course, you know, you going to make some corrections there.

So, make those corrections, pause the video now, unpause when you have made your corrections and you're confident with your answers.

Okay.

So I going to say a huge thank you for taking part in this lesson.

We've looked at actually some very difficult topic today.

People trafficking, human trafficking is a very difficult topic to talk about, to think about that it's still happening today.

But also we've talked about poverty too, which if we think about it, you know, there's some of those statistics that 10% of people live in extreme poverty.

Is something I think, which is quite humbling in terms of makes us really think about, "This is the situation in the world." However, so following lessons, we're going to talk about, okay, what do we.

What will Christian and Muslim believe? Giving to the poor, the uses of wealth and sort of talking about ways in which these people in poverty can be helped.

I hope that you've learned a lot in today's lesson.

I want to thank you so much for working so hard as well.

I don't want to say I hope I'd see you again soon for another lesson.

So, thank you.

Goodbye.