World Day of Social Justice: for auxiliary bishop of Mumbai, people must come before profits
The United Nations established the day in 2007 to highlight global issues like poverty, exclusion, employment, and gender equality. For Mgr D'Silva, violence is the result of inequalities. Existing economic structures must be revisited out of “compassion for our brothers and sisters”.
Mumbai (AsiaNews) – The World Day of Social Justice, which falls today, is an opportunity to put people before profits, said Mgr Allwys D'Silva on the World Day of Social Justice established by the United Nations Day in 2007.
Speaking to AsiaNews, the recently appointed auxiliary bishop of Mumbai, who has been involved for years in social issues, human rights and environmental protection, said that "Today the world is full of strife and divisions", And “Social justice is an underlying principle for peaceful and prosperous coexistence within and among nations.”
The United Nations established the day to highlight global issues such as poverty, exclusion, employment, gender equality, access to welfare, and justice for all. This year’s theme is ‘Preventing conflict and sustaining peace through decent work’.
To this end, all states are urged to promote the objectives and goals of the World Summit for Social Development, such as employment, resilient societies, greater knowledge, co-operation with the United Nations and other stakeholders to build effective strategies for action.
“We uphold the principles of social justice when we promote gender equality or the rights of indigenous peoples and migrants,” said Mgr D'Silva, who heads the Climate Change desk and is the secretary of the Human Development Office of the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences (FABC).
“We advance social justice when we remove barriers that people face because of gender, age, race, ethnicity, religion, culture or disability. When we uphold equality, divisions and strife will disappear. Let the world strive for this equality on world social justice day.”
“Violence is often the result of inequalities,” the prelate explained. “There is no better example than the injustice in the economic sector. When only a few eat the majority of the cake and the rest is given only a small piece of cake there is bound to be violence on the streets.”
“Unemployment is widespread in Asia and hence we need to take a better look at our economic structure which has profit as our only goal and hence the compassion for our brothers and sisters is not taken into account in our daily life. We need to put people first before profit.” (NC)
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