Year 11 General Unit 2, Mod 3 - Social Justice Issues
What is Justice? What is Social Justice?
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Justice is fairness in the way people are dealt with: There's no justice in the world when people can be made to suffer like that. The winner has been disqualified for cheating, so justice has been done (= a fair situation has been achieved). Justice. (n.d.) In Cambridge Dictionary. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/justice Social Justice "is a concept of fair and just relations between individual and society as measured by the distribution of wealth, opportunities for personal activity and social privileges." Social Justice. (n.d.) In Wikipedia. Retrieved July 1, 2020, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_justice |
Concerns
People are concerned about environmental issues. These issues relate to the right to enjoy God’s creation and to access essential resources.
You can help!
Catholic organisations that seek to respond to basic human rights include:
Social Justice Concerns
- Take a stand on human rights issues where justice is being violated.
- Ensure the protection of the unborn.
- Promote the fair treatment of others.
- Remedy unjust discrimination.
- Ensure that the needs of refugees, the hungry and those without access to proper medical care are provided for protect the rights of the unemployed.
- Care for the needs of people with disabilities.
- Work against political persecution in the world.
- Achieve freedom for ‘prisoners of conscience'.
Over the past few weeks, scores of Ethiopian women have been camping on the street outside of their country's consulate in Beirut, abandoned by their Lebanese employers who can no longer afford to pay them.
Carrying little or no money, some are lucky just to have been given time to pack their belongings. Others do not even have a change of clothes or passports with them.
"They are dumping us like trash," one worker who had been in Lebanon for seven years told the Associated Press. "We are human. Would they accept it if their children were treated this way?"
Left by their bosses and with the embassy closing its doors to its own citizens, more than one hundred Ethiopian housemaids have been left stranded with nowhere to go and no money to return home.
Bajec, A. (June 18, 2020). 'Discarded like trash': Ethiopian domestic workers abandoned by employers as Lebanon's economy flatlines. Retrieved from https://english.alaraby.co.uk/english/indepth/2020/6/18/ethiopian-domestic-workers-abandoned-as-lebanons-economy-flatlines
Development of Justice
From an early age children show a basic concern for being treated justly. When their instinctive sense of justice is violated, they may cry, fight or argue. What they feel is often phrased, ‘it’s not fair!’
As children begin to mature, their sense of justice extends beyond themselves to others. They become annoyed if the rights of a sister, brother or friend are violated, and will stand up for them.
During the teenage years, concern for others’ rights tends to extend to other members of the human community — the poor, the hungry, those experiencing discrimination and many others. This is the stage when many young people want to become involved in social justice.
When young people fail to respect the rights of others, especially of their parents and other family members, they discover in themselves a sense of guilt. They may try to find excuses for their behaviour, and to ignore their sense of guilt. The important thing is that the reason for their guilt is their failure to examine their potential for justice.