The laws of poverty.
Interview: Urs Hafner
Anyone who has to live on less than three dollars a day has to become the manager of their own survival. At the same time, poverty is being criminalized, as legal scholar Krista Nadakavukaren Schefer explains.
UNI NOVA: In 2015, the United Nations launched their Sustainable Development Goals for 2030. The first goal is to end poverty in all its forms everywhere. So, are we on track?
Krista Nadakavukaren Schefer: Global poverty had dropped by 2020, but then came the COVID-19 pandemic, and the poorer nations never recovered. Countries like Switzerland that emerged from the pandemic remarkably unscathed are the exception. The goal set by the United Nations to end poverty by 2030 won’t be achieved.
Under President Trump, the United States has dramatically cut funding for development work. What effect is that having?
The USA is not alone. Almost all Western countries have scaled back their development assistance budgets — even Switzerland, Sweden, France and Germany. This is a new reason for increasing poverty numbers, aside from the pandemic. Geography plays a key role, too.
Geography?
The world’s poorest countries are in Sub-Saharan Africa. They’re often direct neighbors. This means their natural trade partners are also poor, and they rarely have well-developed access to the sea. Globally, seaports are still the most important economic lifeline. Lack of access keeps poor countries poor.
Poverty is primarily an economic problem: People simply don’t have enough money. But you’re a legal scholar. How do you define poverty?
There is actually no single legal definition of poverty. Researchers differentiate between absolute and relative poverty. Absolute poverty means having to manage on less than three dollars per day. It affects just short of 840 million people, primarily in Africa. Relative poverty is when someone is living with fifty or sixty percent less income than average for their community. Relative poverty, or inequality, exists everywhere, even in Switzerland. Then there is multidimensional poverty. This isn’t purely an economic matter. It’s also influenced by factors such as exclusion from public life, lack of access to education and an inability to afford recreational activities.
What do you think of these broad definitions of poverty?
I find the approach interesting and useful, because all people affected by poverty face both social and psychological disadvantages. Shame, fear and stress are almost always part of the equation. Yet on a legal level, it’s difficult to work with so many factors. The definitions of poverty and who counts as poor remain vague.
How do people survive on three dollars a day or less?
Just like we do, but with a lot more stress. Studies show that these people are managers in the most literal sense of the word, because they are forced to organize their lives 24 hours a day. Three dollars is just an average value; some days they have more money, and some days they have less or nothing at all. When they have access to larger sums, they have to carefully consider what to do with the money — whether to save or invest it. They don’t know when they’ll get more, so they have to decide whether to spend it on supplies of rice, a cell phone to stay connected, or to pay off debts. On the other hand, they may choose to lend it to their neighbor because they know they’ll need that person’s help again at some point.
Hardly anyone in Switzerland lives in absolute poverty. But some towns, for instance, install benches that are too short for people to sleep on. Are these designed to drive away poor people?
Certainly. These benches are similar to prohibitions on begging. Life is harder for poor people here, just as it is in other places. Poverty is criminalized in many countries: People who beg or who go to the toilet or take their clothes off in public — maybe because they’re changing or washing themselves — are punished.
Why do countries criminalize being poor?
There’s an underlying political statement: Poor people shouldn’t be a nuisance. So the problem doesn’t get solved; instead, poor people are hidden or demonized. Since poverty is frequently overrepresented among certain ethnic groups, criminalizing it can also lead to further discrimination.
Poverty won’t be eliminated by 2030. Will we ever manage to end it?
I’m not optimistic that I’ll live to see that day. Currently, politics should focus more on the issue of economic inequality. There are a growing number of super-rich people, but also an ever-increasing number of people living in relative poverty. The question is how a society responds to rising financial and social inequality and how long non-wealthy and poor people will tolerate that. That’s a question the law can’t answer.
More articles in this issue of UNI NOVA (May 2026).