Author: doc. RNDr. Miloslav Hetteš, CSc. The monograph “Human Rights and Social Protection in Social Work” will serve as study material, but it also aims to offer the broader professional community with knowledge that, to a significant extent, has not yet been available in the Slovak environment.
INTRODUCTION
Social work without human rights is impossible. Social protection is an indispensable component of social work. Every social worker must master both. The monograph “Human Rights and Social Protection in Social Work” will serve as study material, but it also aims to offer the broader professional public with knowledge that, to a significant extent, has not yet been available in the Slovak environment.
The meaning and essence of life is a topic that can answer our most difficult and ordinary problems, challenges, and questions of today. Searching for the answer to why we are not happy even though we strive for happiness must be found in understanding human rights. Are we each alone in the world? Do we really need common protection when we are free individuals? Would it be better to be alone? After all, I know everything and I know it all.
Many things have changed in life. Most importantly, however, a common need remains. The oath of graduates of the Faculty of Health Care and Social Work of St. Elizabeth in Bratislava, Department of Social Work, commits them that:
- they will perform their duties in various spheres of public life of our country as well as abroad conscientiously, willingly, and with full awareness of responsibility for the benefit of our society,
- they will live so that their actions are in harmony with our vocation,
- they will keep in grateful memory the school and their teachers, who during their years of study tried to give them everything they will need for successful fulfillment of their future duties,
- they will guide themselves in their vocation and mission by the principles of Christian humanism and Christian ethics as well as the principles of the Hippocratic Oath, protect life from the beginning to death in dignity, and defend the civil and human rights of sick and vulnerable individuals in our society and protect the living and working environment.
Graduates of social work, among other things, pledge to defend civil and human rights. This must not be a mere formality. But do they fully understand their commitment? Do they know the reason and essence of why they should act as they vow to act? Is it coercion or necessity? Can they identify with their calling? Will the people and groups relying on their help, and the public in general, understand them? Will social workers understand the public?
Social work is based on norms set by human rights. Human rights standards define rules and determine the existence of social protection. Without knowledge of human rights, we cannot understand the meaning of social protection nor of social work itself. Therefore, at least a brief knowledge of human rights is necessary.
Many people only realize the true values of life more clearly at the end of life. One experience of nurse Bronnie Ware (2012) summarizes such an insight that we can evaluate here: in hindsight, what do people consider as what they should have done and what they missed?
“If only I had the courage to live my life and not as others required of me.” People often feel they were not able to live their own lives. They are forced by society’s unjust order to act in imposed ways that do not fulfill them. But today’s globally developed society has no rational reason to enslave people and prevent them from living humanely.
“I wish I had not worked so hard.” Work is an essential part of our lives. Yet it is not its meaning. We can once again confirm that today’s developed society has the capacity for people to spend more time with family, friends, and children, thereby reducing alienation, coldness, and the rise of emptiness. Despite gender equality, work is still often a more strongly felt need among men. Yet work alone is not enough to fulfill life even for them.
“I wish I had the courage to express my feelings.” Society is not yet sufficiently democratic today. We do not use the abundant and hidden human potential. Many incurable diseases have a simple root cause in psychological distress.
“I wish I had not stopped meeting my friends.” It is not a lack of material values that is felt as unfulfilled, but a lack of humanity. Harmonious life in family and with friends is the true value.
“I wish I had allowed myself to be happier.” Too much responsibility, commitments, obligations, repayments, saving, and postponement do not leave space for contentment, spiritual growth, harmony, happiness, joy, and smiling in life. These values, often dismissed as frivolous, remain unfulfilled and shorten physical life on this earth.
All these unmet needs, desires, and values can theoretically be achieved today and we have the necessary capacities for them. Why is this not the case for most people? A social worker should know how to help them, and this is also the purpose of this book.
Since the French bourgeois revolution (1793), it has been established that people are born and remain free and equal in their rights. Social differences may be based only on usefulness for the whole. The purpose of every political community must be the preservation of the natural and inalienable rights of the person. Among these rights are freedom, the right to property except in the public interest, security, and the right to resistance against oppression.
Society exists on a triple agreement of solidarity. The first such “contract” is the agreement between generations. Those who work at this time keep older and younger people alive. Although this is often forgotten, pensions are not paid out from retirees’ savings, but from the taxes of those who work today. In essence, even private pension accounts operate on this principle (they depend on immediate production). This commitment forms a huge intergenerational transfer that is accepted as reality. Even the private system, as we have surprisingly pointed out, is dependent on what the new generation produces. The savings in private accounts are usable only if the new working generation produces goods for future retirees at affordable prices and if they have not been devalued by inflation. Private pension funds behave exactly like pay-as-you-go systems and carry the danger of full transfer of risk to a population already economically inactive, which means a loss of solidarity. Without the existence of an intergenerational agreement, the cycle stops.
The second “contract” was concluded between classes. Coexistence of different social classes is enabled by transfers from richer to poorer groups of the population. Progressive taxation, used in Europe, is evidence of this. Why must wealthier people give up part of their profit? Should everyone not have the same tax? This is a frequent question and forms the essence of much of mass media activity, where behind it is the promotion of illiberal approaches. They support the idea of the state as a bad steward and absolute rights of private property even at the expense of the future of the whole. In social Western Europe, generally no political party wins elections by suppressing progressive taxation and by introducing equal opportunity in education and health, which would mean predetermining someone’s future entirely by where and to whom one is born and by one’s material situation.
The third “contract” is the regional agreement between individual territories. In every country there are richer and poorer regions, but neither side accepts this as a natural state of affairs. There is a pan-European consensus to assist poorer countries and regions through financial transfers. Territorial cohesion is indispensable for the stability and unity of Europe and its countries.
These three contracts represent the European way of life. European democracy is the result of broad agreement between capital and labor, which rests on accepting an economy built on private initiative and a social state that is nondistributive in all the social contracts listed here. Currently, development is underway in shifting many redistribution tasks to pan-European institutions within the process of European integration.
CONTENTS
-
SOCIAL WORK IN OUR TIME Global definition of social work Basic mission of social work Principles of social work Knowledge in social work Practice in social work
-
FOUNDATION OF LIFE STANDARD (WELL-BEING) Cognitive well-being Affective well-being Psychology of well-being Education and social well-being Subjective social well-being Ethnic identity and social well-being Individual status and social well-being Social well-being and happiness Early Islamic caliphate
-
HAPPINESS AND SOCIAL WELL-BEING How happiness is created Prerequisites of happiness
-
HUMAN RIGHTS History of human rights Social contract Ancient Near East Antiquity Early Islamic caliphate Middle Ages Age of discoveries, early modern era, and age of enlightenment 19th century after World War I Between World War I and World War II After World War II Rights in war and the Geneva Conventions
-
THREE GENERATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS First generation of human rights Second generation of human rights Third generation of human rights
-
ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS International human rights legal instruments Regional human rights instruments Secondary sources of law National constitutions State commitments System of monitoring, strengthening and enforcement
-
SOCIAL RIGHTS International social and labor standards Convention on minimum standards in social security
-
UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS Historical prerequisites of the declaration Preparation of the document Structure of the declaration International Human Rights Day Significance and legal effect Organizations supporting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Recent history
-
INTERNATIONAL COVENANT ON CIVIL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS Preparation of the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights Summary of the Civil and Political Rights Covenant Right to physical integrity Freedom and personal security Procedural justice and rights of the accused Personal freedoms Political rights Optional protocols Reservations
-
INTERNATIONAL COVENANT ON ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS Development of the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Covenant Structure of the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Covenant Principle of progressive realization Labor rights Right to social security Right to family life Right to an adequate standard of living Right to health Right to education Right to participation Reservations to the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Optional protocol and monitoring
-
EUROPEAN CONVENTION ON HUMAN RIGHTS AND FUNDAMENTAL FREEDOMS History of the convention Articles of the convention Protocols of the convention
-
CHARTER OF FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS OF THE EUROPEAN UNION Development of the charter Legal status Protocols Text of the charter Increasing the strength and awareness of the charter
-
SOCIAL JUSTICE Catholicism Protestantism Hinduism Islam United Nations Social justice movements
-
SOCIAL PROTECTION History of social protection
-
SOCIAL SECURITY History of social security Forms of social security Provision and financing Income security Types of social security
-
DECISION-MAKING (MANAGEMENT) PROCEDURES Universalism or targeting Modes of provision National programmes
-
EUROPEAN SOCIAL CHARTER Structure of the charter
-
SOCIAL PROTECTION IN SLOVAKIA System of social protection in Slovakia Financing principles Health care Care in illness – cash benefits (sick leave) Maternity care Care in disability Care in old age Care for survivors Work accidents and occupational diseases Benefits for family Care for unemployed Active labor market measures Guaranteeing minimum resources Long-term care Social protection of self-employed persons
-
GUARANTEED SOCIAL MINIMUM AS A NEW APPROACH TO SOCIAL PROTECTION IN EUROPE ILO initiative and the international significance of setting a social minimum Adoption of the recommendation to guarantee minimum social security ICSW proposals
-
INTERNATIONAL EFFORTS FOR SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
-
SECURING SOCIAL WELL-BEING IN SLOVAKIA
-
DEALING WITH SOCIAL PROBLEMS OF TODAY. Transformation of society Slovak society Social investment and social policy Unsustainability Modern Slovakia
-
SOCIAL WORKERS IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY
Title: Human Rights and Social Protection in Social Work © Author: doc. RNDr. Miloslav Hetteš, CSc. Reviewers: prof. JUDr. Vojtech Tkác, CSc. prof. PaeDr. Milan Schavel, PhD. doc. PhDr. Karel Preuss, PhD. Publisher: Vysoká škola zdravotníctva a sociálnej práce sv. Alžbety, Bratislava Year of publication: 2015 Print run: 100 copies Number of pages: 242 Cover: Symbol of Tolerance - Nelson Mandela Monument (Bloemfontein, South Africa), by Estian Wagenaar ISBN: 978-80-8132-128-3