Abstract
The chapter is built upon a premise that work for human security would be best viewed from the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) decent work perspective. In most MMCs, like in many other low-income countries in Africa and Asia, availability of work simply cannot be treated as a step toward human security because in a poor society, in most cases, people cannot afford to be unemployed. These are not decent and far from fulfilling the idea of ‘freedom from want’. This chapter shows that the provision of social security (a fard kifayah) might have been provided through informal and voluntary channels such as zakat and sadaqa, but has not been widely institutionalized in a comprehensive statutory provision of social security in MMCs. The chapter shows that only six of the 47 MMCs have comprehensive statutory provision of social security, none of which are from rich MMCs blessed with abundant natural resources. It argues that this situation is likely to create enormous opportunities for the third sector to offer services to fill the potential human security gaps.
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Notes
- 1.
The Peace Treaty of Versailles mandated the ILO to deal continually with social challenges that threatened ‘conditions of hardship, and privation to large numbers of people so as to threaten or, produce unrest so great that the peace and harmony of the world would be imperiled’ (Treaty of Versailles, Pt XIII (28 June 1919) http://history.sandiego.edu/GEN/text/versaillestreaty/vercontents.html)
- 2.
- 3.
They used quarterly data during 1988–2009.
- 4.
People will commit crime for a small amount of money; babies (for rent) are used by professional beggars in the street of Jakarta, etc.
- 5.
- 6.
The figure is a recent estimate by the National Network of Domestic Worker Advocates (JALA PRT) in 2009. The figure is much higher than the ILO’s previous estimate of 2.6 million domestic workers in 2002 (ILO, 2004).
- 7.
This is based on statutory program on the eight branches of social security provision: sickness, maternity, old age, invalidity, survivors, family allowance, employment injury and unemployment.
- 8.
The quality of growth could simply be referred to aspects of growth that especially reduce extreme poverty and vulnerability, improve the quality of employment, narrow structural inequalities, protect the environment, and sustain the growth process itself, see López, Thomas, and Wang (2008) and Thomas et al. (2000).
- 9.
The six countries are Algeria, Tunisia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. The statutory provision of social security is defined as comprehensive when each of the eight branches of social security is covered by at least one program (ILO, 2010). Therefore, the statutory provision must be differentiated from actual or de facto coverage of social security.
- 10.
See also Rehman and Askari (2010).
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Tadjoeddin, M.Z. (2015). Decent Work for Human Security in Muslim Majority Countries (MMCs). In: Hasan, S. (eds) Human Security and Philanthropy. Nonprofit and Civil Society Studies. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-2525-4_11
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