While many attempts to address the subject of  poverty view it as a multidimensional issue —associated with a myriad of conditions such as hunger, disease and poor education— Haugen and Boutros cast this aside and argue that poor communities all face a fundamental constrain: violence. However, they do not just focus on headline-making violence of wars and genocide, but on day-to-day violence and a general lack of personal security—forced labor, sexual crimes, abusive police, arbitrary detention and land seizures. This, in fact, constitutes the very succinct central thrust; of the book; addressing this quotidian violence is a strict “precondition for the achievement of economic development”.

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