Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday urged the international community to invest in social justice in order to build peaceful, just and inclusive societies across the world.
“We can achieve lasting peace and sustainable development on the foundation of social justice. We must invest in social justice in our efforts to build peaceful, just and inclusive societies worldwide,” she said.
The premier was addressing the plenary session of the two-day “World of Work Summit: Social Justice for All” in Geneva, which is a high-level forum for global voices to address the need for increased, coordinated and coherent action in support of social justice.
The ILO’s summit has brought together over a dozen heads of state and government, high-level representatives from the United Nations, other international organisations, and employers’ and workers’ organisations.
Hasina said Bangladesh continues to play a leading role in ensuring safe, orderly and regular migration.
“We urge the international community to pay heed to climate change impacts on human mobility and overall work environment,” she said in her speech delivered in Bengali.
The PM said this summit meeting, with the launch of the Global Coalition, has created an opportunity to place social justice at the heart of all international development agenda, including SDGs.
“Our government will actively consider joining the Global Coalition through further discussions with our social partners at the national level,” she said.
In this context, she placed a five-point suggestion for the global coalition.
The suggestions include; “One, it would be advisable to develop this Coalition as a consultative or advocacy platform rather than as a norm-setting or negotiating forum; Two, the Coalition must guard against weaponising ‘social justice’ by one international quarter against the other in the current geopolitical context; and Three, the Coalition should make sure that instead of being used as a protectionist tool, social justice should be widely promoted under a rules-based multilateral trading system.”
The rest two suggestions are; “Four, the Coalition needs to ensure broad-based support from ILO’s own constituents with a view enlisting the International Financial Institutions for the purpose of promoting decent work and productive employment; and Five, the Coalition should give attention to making our youth champion social justice.”