Exclusion occurs when someone cannot integrate or join a group.
From the Latin exclusĭo , exclusion is the action and effect of excluding (removing someone or something from a place, discarding, rejecting, denying possibilities). For example: "The exclusion of Gómez from the team generated a great controversy" , "Ricardo never forgave the exclusion of his wife from the guest list" , "The channel's directors announced the exclusion of the journalist from their stable staff due to ideological disagreements" .
The concept of exclusion is very common in the field of social sciences or politics to name the unfavorable social situation of a person or a group of individuals. In this sense, an economic system or a country model is expected to favor social integration and general well-being; Those who do not enjoy development opportunities or who cannot satisfy their basic needs are considered excluded.
Causes of exclusion
Exclusion can occur due to the implicit conditions of the system (which does not allow progress for all members of the community) or by a direct mechanism of discrimination (as in the case of apartheid in South Africa ).
The most frequent factor of exclusion is poverty . A person can be poor for multiple reasons (unemployment, poor remuneration, very large families, health problems): said poverty will mean that they cannot buy food, have decent housing, access medicine, etc. Therefore, poverty leads the subject to be left outside the system, excluded.
Poverty is the main cause of social exclusion.
Risk situation
However, there are many other situations that can lead to a person being considered at risk of social exclusion. Thus, for example, in Spain the legislation determines that someone will be ruled to suffer from that if they belong to groups such as the following: individuals with alcoholism or drug addiction problems who are participating in workshops and reintegration centers, young people between 18 and 30 years who are inside a child protection center, former inmates, those who are in penitentiary centers serving sentences...
In addition to all of the above, it must be emphasized that exclusion is a situation that is determined by the coincidence of issues such as poverty, discrimination, invisibility, reduction of opportunities or lack of tolerance and solidarity.
Origin of the concept of exclusion
It is also important to establish that the term social exclusion emerged in the 1970s. Specifically, it was in France where this expression began to be used following the work titled "Lex exclus: un Français sur Dix", which was written by the who was Secretary of State for Social Action at that time: René Lenoir.
And the thing is that, using this term and carrying out the drafting of that document, what he really wanted was to capture the situation that was experienced at that time in the French country, where a significant number of citizens were outside of what was the Social Security system that came to work and protect workers.
A peaceful and harmonious society is one that guarantees development opportunities for all its inhabitants and that has the necessary mechanisms to correct inequalities.