Tiny steps and giant leaps to ease poverty

IF you hang around social media long enough, you will come across requests for donations — supplies for a children’s home, blankets and clothes for those who are homeless or books for a library. All worthwhile causes, and those who are asking are doing so with a genuine aim to do good.

These requests are often well supported, showing that those who live in comfort are at least aware of those in need. But ever wondered why, despite the numerous requests for help and the often generous responses, it doesn’t seem to solve the problems?

When we give to someone in need it makes us feel good. We tell ourselves how the person receiving the blanket, or the food parcel is now a little bit better off. We can drive off with a clear conscience. We’ve done our bit. But have we?

Many of us abhor poverty. We hate to see people settling down for the night on a hard, cold pavement as the winter night rolls in. We rail on social media against the plight of those who go hungry.

But it does not change anything. To do so would require the long, hard slog of advocacy, lobbying or campaigning. And that does not offer the immediate gratification that a donation gives you. Yet advocacy can have a far greater impact on far more people because the results can lead to widespread change.

Take, for example, the issue of emolument attachment orders (EAOs) — orders of the court that compel employers to deduct money from staff’s salaries to repay debt.

The system was cruelly stacked against consumers, many of them earning low salaries. Many microlenders made it impossible for those affected to access the relevant courts. In some cases such large amounts were being deducted that people had little to live on.

A case brought by the University of Stellenbosch’s Legal Aid Clinic set in motion a change that helped to curb widespread abuse by lenders.

In a scathing judgment on the case in 2015, Judge Siraj Desai of the High Court in Cape Town said the “most disturbing” feature was how microlenders shopped for courts to obtain the EAOs. “The right of access to courts is fundamental to the rule of law in a constitutional state,” he said.

The credit providers and debt collector Flemix, against whom the LAC brought its case, “are obtaining judgments and EAOs against the applicants in courts far removed from their homes and places of work and in places which they could not hope to reach, the right to approach the courts was seriously jeopardised, if not effectively denied,” Desai said.

Desai ruled that employers in the Western Cape were exempt from enforcing garnishee orders against their staff that were obtained in another jurisdiction.

The matter went on to the Constitutional Court, which ruled that EAOs could be granted only with the oversight of a judge or magistrate (and not a clerk of the court, as had been in the case) who had to determine if the repayments were reasonable.

All of this took years of work by individuals and organisations, including the LAC, Odette Geldenhuys, a lawyer who works in Webber Wentzel’s pro bono division, and businesswoman Wendy Appelbaum.

The right to approach the courts was jeopardised

This is why most of us don’t do advocacy work — it is too hard and far too time consuming. Yet changing systems that drive people into desperate situations can prevent more people from falling on hard times, and help more of those who are already there.

As Appelbaum said at the time: “You can’t just sit and complain and not do anything.”

And if the debt of the 16 applicants in the initial case had been repaid through, say, donations from generous people, 16 people would have been helped. Instead the court cases have now helped hundreds of thousands.

Charity and advocacy can work hand in hand — helping people with their immediate needs, while campaigning for systemic change — but there is plenty of the former, and not enough of the latter.

Enslin-Payne is deputy editor of Business Times