Reflection

At a time when people are trying to stay alive amidst a persistent covid-19 pandemic for a little more than two years, the theme of Achieving social justice through formal employment for the World Day of Social Justice on 20^th February seems to be a fanciful utopian dream from the ivory tower of the sleeping global giant, United Nations. Is this a realistic vision for actualization or is it simply a mirage that can never be realized?

During these two years of the pandemic, leaving aside the crashing economy and the fragility of human labour, we have witnessed how human life itself became precarious. Officially, more than 5.8 million people lost their lives and more than 417 million were infected during these 2 years. It is impossible to conceive the mental, psychological and economic depression the families, especially the children, have gone through when they lost their only earning members. Imagine how the 2 billion informal workers all over the world, who never had a secure job and income, must have pulled through these years of unemployment and economic distress. Imagine the agony of millions of daily temporary and casual labourers, migrants and domestic workers when the world went into a complete lockdown for months. The question remains, how did they survive? Do we have the data on the number of people who died due to hunger, poverty and lack of basic necessities, not of covid-19?

This scenario of vulnerability and precariousness of the lives of millions of poor all over the world should not be seen through the paternalistic arrogance or charity of rich nations, but rather with a sense of social justice and equity. While 689 million people are living in extreme poverty surviving merely on less than $1.90 a day, how can the world’s richest man Jeff Bezos of Amazon own the wealth of $177 billion? The Oxfam study on poverty reveals, “the wealth of the 10 richest men in the world has doubled, while the income of 99% of humanity are worse off, because of covid-19.” Is this not a matter of serious concern for the UN? Is it not a sin to allow such individuals to continue amassing wealth while others are dying of hunger, ill health and poverty? How can one celebrate World Day of Social Justice when one is confronted with such disgusting and bizarre disparities in the world?

While booster shots are compulsory in many rich nations, the financial statements of pharmaceutical companies show profits rising exorbitantly with no concern for the people of those nations that have not received even a single dose. New figures from the Peoples Vaccine Alliance reveal that the companies behind two of the most successful COVID-19 vaccines —Pfizer BioNTech and Moderna— are making combined profits of $65,000 every minute. Although World Health Organization (WHO) calls nations to ACT together to end the Covid-19 pandemic, it has no power to demand transparency and accountability from these powerful pharmaceutical companies or from the countries that own them.

The fact is, the Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated inequality and the ‘apartheid policy’ in the distribution of anti-Covid vaccines has taken thousands of innocent lives. Is there an international institutional mechanism to control and monitor the unethical accumulation of wealth by a few individuals, while majority of the poor have no drinking water, food and health facilities? According to Oxfam report, a mere “252 men have more wealth than all the one billion women and girls in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean combined.” How can we speak of Social Justice when such disparities in wealth are not considered unethical?

Besides, Covid-19 has exacerbated a trend of increasing authoritarianism, across the globe, with many countries sliding back the democratic scale. As Fr. Arturo Sosa, the Superior General of the Society of Jesus said, “One of the victims of the pandemic could be democracy, if we do not take care of our political condition. Taking the path of authoritarianism is a big temptation for many governments, even so-called democratic governments.” The pandemic has accelerated the recession of democracy in Myanmar, Philippines, India, Central America, Middle East and North Africa in these last 2 years.

On a World Social Justice Day, one must look at the underlying structural deficiencies and inequalities and see how to ensure greater social justice. Women were the worst affected during this pandemic crisis. Have there been any protective measures created for their labour? Have the nations acknowledged their domestic work as work? It is not enough to make wonderful promises and invite nations to transition from informal to formal employment. There must be a credible and attainable roadmap for action irrespective of who makes these decisions.

Although the UN resolution (A/Res/62/10) declaring February 20 as the World Day of Social Justice calls for “commitment to promote national and global economic systems based on the principles of justice, equity, democracy, participation, transparency, accountability and inclusion”, there does not seem to be any effort to promote the participation of economically weaker nations, in this quest for transparency, accountability and inclusion of countries that are poor.

When the labour market is struggling to recover and return to pre-pandemic times; when millions of workers in the formal sector have lost their employment and have been pushed into informal sectors with loss of working hours; and above all, when the temporary and casual workers have suffered job losses at a much higher rate than those in the formal sector, to call for achieving social justice through formal employment seems to be an unrealistic dream. During this time of the pandemic crisis, it might be more relevant and beneficial to the vast majority who are marginalized, to work towards a human-centred recovery approach and invite nations to make policies that would ensure the protection of vulnerable communities and groups of workers in the informal sector: self-employed, temporary, migrant and low-skilled workers. Caring for the work of these categories of people and striving to providing social security and protection to them, will require a deeper sense of spirituality, love, respect, creativity and commitment.