Destitution

DESTITUTION IS A FORM of poverty in which people are so lacking in material goods that they have nothing. The devastation may be caused by cataclysmic natural disasters or due to human-caused disasters such as war. Many scholars who write about poverty consider destitution to be synonymous with extreme poverty or extreme want. Similar terms that are not as extreme but do describe extreme conditions of want are indigence, pauperism, beggary, and utter want.

There are many reasons why people may be destitute. The devastation caused by natural disasters can destroy all resources. Throughout history whole cities or regions have been ravaged by fires, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, plagues, famines, severe winters, or other disasters.

From time to time people who had little to begin with were rendered destitute when floodwaters not only destroyed what they had but brought silt or fill that destroyed farmland, rendering the land useless for agriculture. In Central America, Hurricane Mitch (October 22 to November 4, 1998), a category 5 hurricane, brought terrible flooding to Honduras, Nicaragua, and elsewhere in the region. The floods not only killed hundreds of people, but livestock and other farm animals were also wiped out. The resulting devastation made many poor people destitute; their only recourse became the aid supplied by international relief efforts.

Other examples of natural disasters causing destitution can be found in the areas that are prone to severe earthquakes. People may be killed in great numbers by the earthquakes because they are in buildings that were not built to withstand severe shocks. The impact may render whole areas destitute, because those who survive [Page 259]ohave lost their businesses, homes, and families and are left with only a pile of rubble.

Famine can also be a result of destitution. In the 1840s Ireland was hit with a potato virus that killed potato plants, a staple of the Irish diet. The Irish population had grown to a great extent because of the extra food supply provided by potatoes. Lacking money, especially enough to buy food, a great many of the Irish, perhaps as many as one million, starved to death. With money, food would have flowed to a market, but lacking money or resources that could be converted into money, the destitute were left to starve.

Other natural disasters include drought and bad harvests. The Sahel in Africa, the semiarid belt that stretches across Africa, is a transition zone between the Sahara Desert and the broad savannahs of Africa. In the last part of the 20th century the Sahel was affected severely by drought. Many of the people, and especially the nomadic people of the area, lost their livestock. Without sheep, goats, or especially camels they were rendered destitute.

In other areas farmers in Asia have been affected by bad harvests enough that they were forced to choose between losing their land and total destitution and selling one or more of their children. Boys were usually kept, but girls sold, often into prostitution. There have also been men who joined armies or women who entered into prostitution to escape their destitute condition. The other practical choice was to die of starvation or turn to theft or banditry.

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