TED | 贫穷真正的根源是什么？

演讲简介：民权律师Gary Haugen指出，世人的同情心，让全球贫困人口自上世纪八十年代来不断减少。然而，尽管全球不断提供救济金，但仍然存在着一个不为人知的非常普遍的问题，正是这个问题让贫困依然盛行。侯嘉理揭露了这一贫穷成因，我们必须立刻就此采取行动。

演讲者：Gary Haugen

演讲精彩片段赏析 

So why, why are so many billions still stuck in such harsh poverty? Well, let's think about Venus for a moment. Now for decades, my wife and I have been moved by common compassion to sponsor kids, to fund micro loans, to support generous levels of foreign aid. But until I had actually talked to Venus, I would have had no idea that none of those approaches actually addressed why she had to watch her son die.

为什么呢？为什么有好几十亿人深陷贫困的深渊？让我们再回到Venus的故事。数十年来，我的夫人和我出于同情帮助孩子，资助小额贷款，慷慨地支持国外援救行动。但直到我亲身跟Venus攀谈后，我才知道以前所做的一切都没有切中要害，以致于她不得不眼睁睁地看着她的孩子死去。

 

"We were doing fine," Venus told me, "until Brutus started to cause trouble." Now, Brutus is Venus' neighbor and "cause trouble" is what happened the day after Venus' husband died, when Brutus just came and threw Venus and the kids out of the house, stole all their land, and robbed their market stall. You see, Venus was thrown into destitution by violence.

 “本来我们过得挺好，” Venus告诉我， ”直到Brutus开始惹麻烦。“ Brutus是Venus的邻居， ”惹麻烦“是指 Venus丈夫去世后的第二天，Brutus将Venus 和她的孩子们赶出了家门，掠去了所有的土地，抢走了值钱的东西。是暴力让Venus陷入贫困。

 

And then it occurred to me, of course, that none of my child sponsorships, none of the micro loans,none of the traditional anti-poverty programs were going to stop Brutus, because they weren't meant to.

这让我突然间意识到，我的儿童资助、小额贷款、传统的抗击贫困的运动，都无法阻止Brutus，因为所做的一切都没切中要害。

 

This became even more clear to me when I met Griselda. She's a marvelous young girl living in a very poor community in Guatemala. And one of the things we've learned over the years is that perhaps the most powerful thing that Griselda and her family can do to get Griselda and her family out of poverty is to make sure that she goes to school. The experts call this the Girl Effect. But when we met Griselda, she wasn't going to school. In fact, she was rarely ever leaving her home.

当我遇到Griselda后，我更加清晰地意识到这个问题。她是一个美丽的年轻女子，住在危地马拉一个贫困不堪的社区。根据我们过去的经验，我们认为让Griselda和她的家庭走出贫困的最有效的办法，或许就是确保Griselda能够完成学业。专家称之为“女孩效应”。但当我们遇到Griselda时，她并没有上学。事实上，她几乎走不出家门。

 

Days before we met her, while she was walking home from church with her family, in broad daylight,men from her community just snatched her off the street, and violently raped her. See, Griselda had every opportunity to go to school, it just wasn't safe for her to get there. And Griselda's not the only one.

在我们遇见她的几天前，当她离开教堂，跟家人走在回家的路上时，光天化日之下，她所在社区的几个男人把她从街道上拉走，强暴了她。所以，Griselda并不缺少上学的机会，只是上学的路上太不安全了。Griselda并不是唯一面临这个问题的孩子。

 

Around the world, poor women and girls between the ages of 15 and 44, they are — when victims of the everyday violence of domestic abuse and sexual violence — those two forms of violence account for more death and disability than malaria, than car accidents, than war combined. The truth is, the poor of our world are trapped in whole systems of violence.

全世界，在15到44岁之间的贫困的妇女和女孩中，因日常家庭暴力和性暴力侵犯而丧生或残疾的人数，要超过因疟疾、交通事故、战争而死亡或残疾的妇女数量之和。真相是，全世界的穷人都深陷暴力的牢笼。

 

In South Asia, for instance, I could drive past this rice mill and see this man hoisting these 100-pound sacks of rice upon his thin back. But I would have no idea, until later, that he was actually a slave, held by violence in that rice mill since I was in high school.

比如说，在南亚，我开车驶过一片稻田， 看到这个男人用他瘦弱的后背驼着100磅重的米袋。但当时我根本就没想到，他原来是一个奴隶，在我上着高中时，他就被迫碾米作坊劳作。

 

Decades of anti-poverty programs right in his community were never able to rescue him or any of the hundred other slaves from the beatings and the rapes and the torture of violence inside the rice mill. In fact, half a century of anti-poverty programshave left more poor people in slavery than in any other time in human history

数十年来，他所在社区的抗击贫困的运动都没能解救他，也没能解救作坊中其他遭受殴打、强暴、酷刑的百余名奴隶。事实上，相对于 人类历史上其他任何时刻，近半世纪以来的抗击贫困的运动，让人类历史上沦为奴隶的人数达到了顶峰。

 

Experts tell us that there's about 35 million people in slavery today. That's about the population of the entire nation of Canada, where we're sitting today. This is why, over time, I have come to call this epidemic of violence the Locust Effect. Because in the lives of the poor, it just descends like a plague and it destroys everything. In fact, now when you survey very, very poor communities, residents will tell you that their greatest fear is violence. But notice the violence that they fear is not the violence of genocide or the wars, it's everyday violence.

专家告诉我们， 世界上目前大概有三千五百万奴隶。这大概相当于加拿大 整个国家人口的数量，这就是目前的状况。这就是为什么，我将这遍布的暴力称之为 “蝗虫效应”。 因为，穷人们就像遭受了一场瘟疫般，家庭支离破碎，生活惨不忍睹。事实上，如今当你跟那些极度贫困的社区居民交流时，他们会告诉你他们最大的恐惧，就是暴力。注意，他们恐惧的暴力不是种族灭绝或战争，而是日常暴力。