David Hyde, the 22-year-old New Zealander who made headlines worldwide when he lived in a tent during an unpaid internship with the UN in Geneva, is visibly uncomfortable with the attention his story has received. This, he says, is not the conversation we should be having. “It took a white middle-class boy from a developed country to live in a tent [to draw attention to the issue of unpaid work], yet tens of thousands of people from the developing world are excluded every day.”



Hyde made the news because though his internship wasn’t bankrolled by his parents, he was still privileged enough to be able to get into dire straits. Anant Bhan from India didn’t make headlines in 2005 when he decided he couldn’t apply for an unpaid internship at the World Health Organisation (WHO). Bhan, now 35, had just finished an Masters from the University of Toronto, for which he had a scholarship. “The costs of an unpaid internship in places like Geneva or New York were too intimidating to even consider,” he says. “It’s sad that it’s been 10 years and the story is still the same: the system is skewed against those who are from under-resourced parts of the world.”

David Hyde camped because he couldn’t afford the rent in Geneva when he was doing his internship at the UN. Guardian

Among the other tens of thousands who didn’t make headlines is Makam Khan, a student union representative in Afghanistan. He recommends that fellow students take internships to help them know more about their field, but repeatedly finds they can’t afford to, because of the daunting outlay on airfares, accommodation and living costs. “People from developing countries are not even able to afford their air tickets, so it would be difficult for [Afghan students] to participate in such programmes at their own expense. Looking to the current scenario we can’t see any equality among the world’s states.”



The UN’s declaration of human rights states that “everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity”. However, interns apparently do not fall under the category of “everyone”. In 1997, the UN passed a “resolution” to forbid the payment of non-staff – though it turns out “resolution” is a grandiose term for “admin instruction”, which merely took note of a situation that had been taking place for years.



As a white middle-class male from a developed country, I am not representative of those most excluded by this policy David Hyde

In 1996, before the “resolution” not to pay non-staff, the UN’s intern intake was 131. By 2014 it was 4,018. So in the 44,000-strong organisation, unpaid interns now account for roughly 10% of staff. And that group is made up of a very uneven representation of the globe’s population. For example, even though Europe only makes up about 12% of the world’s population, in 2007 43% of all UN interns were from Europe. Developed nations make up about 15% of the world’s population, yet 59% of the UN’s 2007 interns were from developed nations. In contrast, Africa also makes up about 15% of the world’s population, yet in 2007 members of African nations held just 12% of the intern positions.

In a letter this year to the secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, requesting that interns receive a stipend (notably, UN interns aren’t even asking for their full human rights of equal pay for equal work; simply a living stipend), intern groups Quality and Fairly Remunerated Internships Initiative and Pay Your Interns said: “Figures from 2009 suggest that 40% of interns were from developing countries, with only 5% from least developed countries”.

During interviews for UN internships, candidates are asked to show they have a personal commitment to “UN values”. Yet the intern hiring process offers none of the “favourable remuneration” to which “everyone who works” is entitled, according to the declaration of human rights. Is there not a conflict between calling for a commitment to equality while in effect making it harder for people from developing nations to come and work for you?

One unpaid intern who fits the classic profile is Melodie Ruwet from Belgium – but Ruwet wouldn’t, by Belgian standards, be considered privileged. “I come from a low-income family. My mum is unemployed with three kids and my dad is just not there, so I have to get the money by myself.”

However, she is privileged enough to be from a developed country and is currently working as a marketing intelligence assistant at a fibreglass company in order to save for her three-month internship at ECLAC (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean) at the UN in Santiago, Chile. However, if a native of Santiago wanted to save to do an unpaid internship in Belgium, it would be a different story. “There are people who can dream as much as they want about doing an internship at the UN, but because of where they were born they will never get the chance I’m getting,” she says.



But is it really necessary to do an internship to get into development? “It’s almost unavoidable,” says Ruwet. “It’s a highly competitive field. Without experience from internships, they won’t pick you. They’ll pick someone who managed to put their skills into practice, someone who has people who can vouch for them.”

It’s “not a career-breaker”, says Bhan, who managed to find work at an NGO despite not having been able to do a UN internship. But without an internship it’s all about luck. “It was unfair and it’s something that’s stayed with me. I still look back with regret at the lost opportunity.”



Aside from exacerbating inequality, organisations that don’t pay interns narrow their hiring pool to a puddle of those who can fund international flights and accommodation in some of the world’s most expensive cities – or at the very least, a tent.

Ian Richards, president of the staff coordinating committee at the UN, agrees that organisations who demand unpaid work as the price of admission shoot themselves in the foot. “If it’s going to be hard to get good candidates from developing countries, that’s not going to make our work in developing countries any easier. If we have people with experience of growing up in developing countries – not just from the richest families but all parts of society – I think the UN will be much better for it.”



A “reasonable estimation”, says Richards, is that a stipend for all interns would take up 0.1% of the UN’s budget. “This comes at a time when the General Assembly is being asked to consider a proposal to award a 10% pay rise to top bosses, so it seems they can spend when they want to.”



The notion of a living stipend for interns is not controversial or even new – International Labour Organisation introduced a stipend a decade ago after discovering one of their interns sleeping in the basement. And a basement has a roof that isn’t made of fabric.



“The fact is,” says Hyde, who has now packed up his tent and is staying with his girlfriend, “as a white middle-class male from a developed country, I am not representative of those most excluded by this policy. Organisations used to invest in employees, and now that investment is being dumped on the employee. They’ve offloaded their budgetary problems on to young people, and it’s making the next generation even more unequal than the last.” If the UN has any interest in fighting inequality, it should start at its own front door.



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