The United Nations voted to declare Feb. 20 as the World Day of Social Justice on Nov. 26, 2007; however, they did not hold their first event until 2009. Social justice, as stated on the U.N.’s website, “is an underlying principle for peaceful and prosperous coexistence within or among nations.” Thus, this day was coined for the sake of the oppressed and those with unequal rights the world over. The U.N. declared the theme of this year to be “Workers on the Move,” focusing on social justice for migrant workers as well as their economic impacts.
With 258 million international migrants, roughly 150 million of these being migrant workers, the time has come to address their issues. From an economic standpoint, they make up 4.4 percent of the international workforce and have higher labor force participation rates than non-migrants — 73 percent and 64 percent, respectively. Labor force participation rates are described as how many people are able to work as a percent of the total population, meaning migrant workers are far more work-ready than other groups.
The U.N. event scheduled for today included three guest speakers. The first was award-winning independent journalist Melissa Noel; she discussed the “barrel children” of the Caribbean. These are children whose parents left them to work abroad; the parents then send home barrels of material goods and money to their families. The children of these families are not lacking financially; however, they do lack the emotional support needed while growing up. Noel stressed the need for a support system for these families, because there is currently no organization to help families adapt to migrant situations.
The second speaker was writer and independent journalist Mario Kaiser, speaking about a Turkish day laborer in Berlin. Mr. Ince would wake up in the middle of the night every day to travel across Berlin. He would arrive before 5 a.m. hoping to get a job, which was not guaranteed. Kaiser emphasized the fact that day laborers are all around us every day and often do not get appreciation.
The final speaker was Mahoma Lopez, one of the chief characters in the award-winning documentary “The Hand That Feeds.” He is an undocumented immigrant in the United States and formed a union to fight for minimum wage for undocumented workers. Many American businesses use the threat of deportation to pay immigrant workers less in order to save money. He emphasized that the system in place does not give undocumented workers a voice to gain rights.
These stories bring to light the problems of an unrepresented portion of societies all over the world. They gave clear places for organizations to focus their efforts and emphasized them with real stories. It is touching to see these people’s troubles brought to the international stage to hopefully be addressed.
