Irene Khan: The Unheard Truth: Poverty and Human Rights October 29, 2009

In our rapidly globalizing age with economic growth occurring in almost every corner of the world, it is easy to forget that more than one billion people still live on less than one dollar a day. Poverty is the worst human-rights crisis in the world today, denying billions of people their most basic rights. In a bracing argument enriched by compelling photographs from across the world, Amnesty International Secretary General Irene Khan makes the case that poverty remains a global epidemic because we continue to define it as an economic problem whose only solution is foreign aid and investment. Khan calls for a reevaluation of this longstanding assumption and turns us toward confronting poverty as a human-rights violation. Empowering the poor with basic rights of security is our only chance for eradicating poverty and giving freedom and dignity to those who have never experienced it.

The Unheard Truth is a powerful argument by the secretary general of Amnesty International that poverty is not just an economic problem but a global human-rights violation.

Irene Khan, as the first woman and first Asian secretary general of Amnesty International, has brought a strong focus to socioeconomic rights and violence against women around the world. Previously, she spent 20 years at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and was appointed in 1995 as the Chief Mission to India, becoming the youngest United Nations representative. She lives with her husband and daughter in London.

"An essential book for anyone serious about ending poverty: Khan makes a passionate, nuanced case that no solution will work unless it empowers the world's poor with the basic economic, social, and legal rights to assure them a strong voice in shaping their own lives." - Hernando de Soto, chair, Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor.

Mitch Jeserich introduces.

$10 advance at independent bookstores, or Brown Paper Tickets at 800-838-3006 /$13 door

$10 advance, $13 door.

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