In several significant ways the UN Consultative Status International Human Rights Commission (IHRC) joined the United Nations (UN) and people all over the world to observe December 10, 2023 as World Human Rights Day. This is observed every year around the world as the date when the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. When people living in poverty talk about their lives, it becomes very clear how poverty is, in fact, a violation of human rights.

Poverty is a global problem. According to the World Bank in 2015, over 700 million people were living on less than $1.90 a day. While that represents a milestone (in 1990, it was over one billion) that’s still way too many people. That number also includes extreme poverty that is defined by the UN as “a condition characterized by severe deprivation of basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and information. It depends not only on income but also on access to services.”

Taking measures to be a recognized voice of primary advocacy efforts on addressing extreme poverty from a human rights perspective, the office of Amb. Abdullahi Adamu Bakoji, the IHRC Country Director for Nigeria carried out a human-rights-based approach to gifting the poor people which is important advocacy for poverty alleviation.

In the report to the IHRC Global Director, H.E Dr. Tivlumun Innocent Ahure at the IHRC Headquarters the IHRC Nigeria chapter officials gave indications of many areas they have been engaged in to willfully serve humanity with aid and support. The outreach programme have empowered widows who are an invisible part of society—ignored, rejected and, sometimes considered cursed, for being responsible for the cause of their husbands’ deaths.

Amb. Abdullahi Adamu Bakoji, IHRC Country Director, Nigeria

Beginning a day earlier, the IHRC Nigeria visited the Correctional facility (Prisons) in Kano to engage in charity and reformation counseling and on December 10, 2023, the team greatly impacted the Kano Children’s Home where there are millions of children who must fend for themselves: orphans, runaways or abandoned children. Alone and unprotected, these individuals face immense hardships. The report viewed the occasion of the World Human Rights Day as a day that should be dedicated to minister to these precious women and children in addition to the work of human rights diplomacy.