Empowerment and Protection - Stories of Human Security Oct. 2014 | Página 108

People’s perspectives
on human security
Holistic experiences of security

Across contexts as different as Afghanistan,
Zimbabwe, and the Philippines, people’s
perspectives on security show complex, diverse
understandings of human security that encompass
far more than survival or freedom from fear.
Respondents view their security and the
security of their communities as a multi-faceted,
interrelated experience that includes physical
safety, access to education, livelihood, government
protection, health care, the right to residence, and
development. At the same time, intangible factors
such as trust in others, being treated with dignity,
and protection of cultural identity and community
are just as integral to perceptions of security.
The interviews clearly reflect the broader notion
of human security adopted by the UN in 2012,
encompassing freedom from want, freedom from
fear, and freedom to live in dignity.

The interviews clearly reflect
the broader notion of human
security adopted by the UN in
2012, encompassing freedom
from want, freedom from fear,
and freedom to live in dignity.
Environmental security
Environmental insecurity threatens individual
survival and economic opportunities. In Zimbabwe,
the government’s inability to address water
shortages and support development in rural areas
leads to economic insecurity and endangers
educational rights, according to a church leader:
“[Due to the drought] people are unable to feed
their families and take the children to school
because they are unable to earn a livelihood […]
what is required is the construction of dams and
boreholes.” In the West Bank, barriers to water
and land access fuel economic insecurity, as a
respondent in Jericho explains: “Farmers in areas
north of Jericho buy water from Israel at a high
price despite the presence of water on their land,
as they are banned by Israel from digging artesian
108 stories of Human Security | the Citizen-State Relationship

wells – [due to the water scarcity] the crops are
beginning to suffer.” Natural resources are a
determinant of economic opportunities, which
in turn affect many other dimensions of human
security.

Poverty, political
marginalisation,
and insecurity
go hand in hand.

Economic and political security
Economic insecurity is both a result and a cause of
other forms of insecurity, and is intimately linked
with political security. One shop owner in Kabul
clearly equates his education and the opportunity
to run his own business with increased security:
“Education and employment have put me in a
position to fight for my rights.” In Zimbabwe’s
Matabeleland, respondents are concerned with a
lack of development that they see as linked to their
political marginalisation and the legacy of severe
historic conflict that still feeds community tensions.
A Filipino respondent draws the connection
between political power, economic opportunity,
and security by pointing to the lack of opportunities
of poor people to change their fate, perpetuating
an overall sense of insecurity in society. Poverty,
political marginalisation, and insecurity go hand in
hand.

security. Some indigenous peoples (IP) leaders in
Mindanao trace the loss of their traditional world
view with greater intertribal conflict. In contrast,
many Afghan respondents see cultural norms as
a source of insecurity and refer to ‘old ways of
thinking’ and illiteracy as causes of discrimination
and violence against minorities and women in
particular. A housewife in Kabul describes the
discrimination against girls and women, violence
against women and the constant violations of
women’s rights as “issues that originate from lack of
opportunities for youth, elders’ way of thinking, and
illiterate people.”
Symbolic disrespect of cultural norms is a source
of community insecurity. A respondent from
the West Bank recounts the humiliation he felt
seeing a young Muslim woman remove her body
covering, or jilbab, in public at an Israeli checkpoint.
In Crimea, an elderly communist expresses his
distress at demonstrations of Ukrainian nationalists
at the graves of Russian veter