The world is suffering from many social injustices from past many years like gender inequality, racism, poverty, unemployment, etc. After witnessing all these issues UN on 8th June 2008 announced to celebrate the world day of social justice on February 20th of every year for continuous and fair social justice. The day was started celebrating from the year 2009.
What is Social Justice?
According to United Nations, “Social justice may be broadly understood as the fair and compassionate distribution of the fruits of economic growth”.
Whereas According to Wikipedia, “Social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society”.
The goal of social justice is to raise a voice against social injustice and to provide fair and equal opportunities, privileges and treatment to every individual regardless of their age, gender, religion, or any other factor.
The theme for World Day of Social Justice 2022
The theme for world day of social justice 2022 is “A call for social justice in the digital economy”. The theme will address the remote working environment that has been created by the Covid-19 pandemic and its impact on labour wages and opportunities.
4 Key Principles of Social Justice
The four key principles of social justice are Access, Equity, Participation, and Human rights.
- Access – Access to all resources and services like education, employment, etc. is the most important principle of social justice. In many communities and societies, people lack these necessities and thus they end up in low-wage occupations and poverty.
- Equity – The other important key principle is Equity. This states that for social justice and welfare it is necessary to provide equitable resources to every individual focusing on the specific needs of every individual.
- Participation – This principle states that every individual should have an equal opportunity and right to participate in making the policies to improve their social welfare and well-being.
- Human rights – The last and foremost important principle of social justice are human rights. Social justice and human rights are the 2 sides of the same coin. They both are inter-connected so it’s impossible to have social justice without human rights and vice-versa. Human rights include voting rights, the right to freedom of thought and expression, the right to privacy, and other basic rights to social services.
Where do the key principles of social justice apply?
The term social justice itself states that it covers all the issues connected with welfare, well-being, and justice for society. So principles- access, equity, participation, and human rights apply to every issue such as:
Voting discrimination
Gender discrimination
Disability discrimination
Access to education and healthcare services and many more.
Social justice is necessary for vanishing injustice, for facilitating equal opportunities, treatment, human rights, and social protection to all communities and individuals by protecting them from all the discriminations.
As Frederick Douglass rightly said
“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe”.