The low Income Mothers and Higher Education

Punitive and rigid Work First welfare policies and the ability of low income mothers to pursue post-secondary education are on a collision course.The Work First approach, enshrined in the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) and reinvigorated in the Bush administration’s reauthorization proposals, stigmatizes low income mothers as undeserving of benefits, of time to parent their own children, of education, and of general respect. The exclusive remedy prescribed for low income mother variously stigmatized as work aversive, dependent, behaviorally disorganized, and morally deficient—is escalating work requirements, now proposed as forty hours per week. Many low income mothers, however, understand that their economic and social interests lie in post-secondary education, a far more realistic pathway to independence and self-respect than the low-wage, insecure jobs into which welfare recipients are driven by Work First policies. Such policies, asframed by national and state legislation and implemented in the practices of social service and Work First agencies, have built a nearly insurmountable wall of obstacles to student mothers’ pursuit of two-year and four-year degrees as they try to study while working and parenting in conditions of poverty. Remarkably, some mothers have persisted, aided by their own fortitude and resilience, informal family networks, supportive advocates, or programs at educational institutions and in their communities. Only a handful of states have chosen to invest in

low income parents, viewing them as people with considerable developmental potential rather than as malingerers who need to be booted into the workplace.Shut Out: Low Income Mothers and Higher Education in Post-Welfare America examines this confrontation between a welfare-to-work regime that coerces single mothers into low-wage work, and women who have resisted, understanding that higher education is critical to their capacity to provide for their family’s long-term economic self-sufficiency and their ability to make autonomous decisions about their lives, their children’s academic and social development, and their community’s well-being. The book examines the general issues of post-secondary education and low income mothers in the current welfare climate that equates personal responsibility with immediate engagement in the low-wage labor market and exit from the welfare rolls, analyzing the actual experiences of racially diverse low income mothers struggling to gain access to meaningful education and training in a variety of geographic locations. The

formidable obstacles to their educational achievements include not only formal work requirements in an unreformed labor market unfriendly to women with children, but also restrictive, punitive, and inconsistent implementation of a range of welfare-to-work provisions. Such policies and frontline delivery practices compromise student mothers’ parenting, disrupt their educational progress and disregard their work histories and aspirations, forcing independently minded low income parents either to give up on college degrees or make painful short-term sacrifices hoping they will make long-term gains. The book also focuses on the policies and practices of educational institutions and higher education financial aid policies as they affect low income mothers, and examines alternatives to Work First paradigms and practices. The voices, the struggles and the resistance of low income student mothers are presented, and concrete organizational and policy alternatives are analyzed.

The International law

Numerous multilateral treaties have been enacted to address the problem of corruption. The chapter will examine five treaties, classified into regional and multiregional laws. The regional laws are the

Organization of American States Inter-American Convention against Corruption (Inter-American Convention), Council of Europe Criminal Law Convention and African Union Convention on

Preventing and Combating Corruption (AU Convention). The multiregional laws are the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public

Officials in International Business Transactions (OECD Anti-Bribery Convention) and United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC). The focus will be on the approach of such treaties with regard to transnational bribery and the grounds of jurisdiction for prosecuting the crime of transnational bribery.

       There has been extensive discourse on attempts to hold corporations responsible for violations of international law norms through civil liability. Such cases are dealt with in domestic courts.1 For example, in 2001, a class action lawsuit was filed in the United States by five Holocaust victims against International Business Machines for allegedly aiding and abetting crimes against humanity and violations of human rights.2 Attempts to hold corporations directly responsible for violations of international law norms are, however, controversial. One aspect of the call for direct corporate responsibility which seems uncontroversial is that which relates to international crimes such as crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity (core crimes).3 The consensus of distinguished experts is that corporations can be held responsible for such core crimes.4 International criminal law recognises that corporations can be held responsible for the core crimes, albeit still only through domestic jurisdictions. Currently, no international court addresses corporate responsibility even for ‘serious’ international crimes. This chapter will review the approach of current international law towards corporate liability for international corruption. Corporate responsibility in international law for such crimes is primarily recognised indirectly, through state mechanisms put in place to enforce relevant laws and soft-law initiatives. International corruption differs from the core crimes for which direct corporate responsibility is now being recognised; nevertheless, direct corporate responsibility is noless relevant for international corruption. The failure of states to hold corporations liable for the crime of international corruption calls for direct corporate responsibility. The possibility and implications of making corporations directly responsible under international law for the crime of international corruption will therefore be explored in this chapter. It must be said, however, that the state-centric structure of international law militates against the evolution of an international regime of corporate responsibility and liability.