“Poverty is the denial of human rights.”

-Irene Khan, Former Head of Amnesty International, Author: The Unheard Truth: Poverty and Human Rights

OR

Update: Ushahidi does Haiti.

When the county doesn’t have money for Pauper’s Burials and the citizens don’t have money to bury their dead loved ones…they stay frozen (h/t Post Bourgie)

Inside the Wayne County morgue in midtown Detroit, 67 bodies are piled up, unclaimed, in the freezing temperatures. Neither the families nor the county can afford to bury the corpses. So they stack up inside the freezer.

Albert Samuels, chief investigator for the morgue, said he has never seen anything like it during his 13 years on the job. “Some people don’t come forward even though they know the people are here,” said the former Detroit cop. “They don’t have the money.”

Lifelong Detroit residents Darrell and Cheryl Vickers understand this firsthand. On a chilly September morning they had to visit the freezer to identify the body of Darrell’s aunt, Nancy Graham — and say their goodbyes.

The couple, already financially strained, don’t have the $695 needed to cremate her. Other family members, mostly in Florida, don’t have the means to contribute, either. In fact, when Darrell’s grandmother passed recently, his father paid for the cremation on a credit card — at 21% interest.

So the Vickers had to leave their aunt behind. Body number 67.
[...]

“One way we look back at a culture is how they dispose of their dead,” said the county’s chief medical examiner, Carl Schmidt, who has been in his position for 15 years. “We see people here that society was not taking care of before they died — and society is having difficulty taking care of them after they are dead.”
via Bodies pile up in Detroit morgue; poor can’t afford burial – Oct. 1, 2009 .

What is this a f*cking Dickens’ novel? Damn.

Isn’t splitting cost a benefit to getting married? or are there a lack of subsidies and/or tax incentives in Japan for married couples?

Mr Aso was asked whether poverty was making people marry later, contributing to Japan’s low birth rate.

His response was: ”Young people had better not get married with little money.”

He added it was difficult for him to see how someone without pay could be seen as an object of respect.

via BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Japan PM in gaffe on poor couples.