Justice Mission Research Articles

Counseling Psychology Marches Toward Racial Justice as Society Embraces “Neutrality”

In the inaugural speech for the Society of Counseling Psychology’s Janet E. Helms Racial Justice Award, the author thanked the multiple parties responsible for establishing the award in recognition of her efforts toward promoting racial justice and for providing impetus for future generations to carry forth the mission of racial justice in the various domains that define counseling psychology. In addition, she contended that the march toward racial justice has been obscured by multicultural pluralism that denies the effects of racism on everyone regardless of culture or other isms. As a consequence, counselors’ skills are often inadequate for addressing systemic policies intended to neutralize racial justice efforts. The author proposes some crude racial justice guidelines for counselors to encourage them to mitigate the confusion that now exists with respect to racism, racial justice, and culture in our profession and society at large.

Social workers’ perceptions and attitudes of environmental issues and sustainable development as social work practice in Aotearoa New Zealand

INTRODUCTION: Environmental and sustainable social work is gaining momentum in social work due to the rising concern of climate change and environmental degradation. Despite the social work profession being committed to social justice, the perspectives of social workers practising in Aotearoa New Zealand on environmental/green social work are yet to be explored. This study explored social workers’ attitudes and beliefs on environmental justice and sustainable practice. It also examined what factors support them to consider environmental issues in social work practice. METHODS: A survey using an online portal was conducted with qualified social workers to assess their attitudes and knowledge. Descriptive, correlation and regression analyses were used to analyse the data. RESULTS: A total of 102 questionnaires were analysed. The results indicated moderate levels of pro-ecological perspectives and awareness of sustainability attitudes, high level of agreement including Māori and other indigenous tradition and wisdom in ecological justice, strong belief in climate change and the importance of factoring environmental issues in social work practice. While over 80% of the participants thought that environmental issues should be part of social work practice, there are still gaps in translating these into practice. Participants would like to see more environmental issues being integrated into social work education to better prepare graduates entering the profession. CONCLUSIONS: Social work education is urged to incorporate the natural environment, environmental justice and values and skills across the curriculum to advance the social justice mission to reduce the disparity among those who are vulnerable and marginalised.

‘It Begins with Victoria’ — The Yoorrook Justice Commission & Innovating Transitional Justice for First Nations Australia

‘It Begins with Victoria’ — The Yoorrook Justice Commission & Innovating Transitional Justice for First Nations Australia

Justice, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging: A Health Humanities Consortium Initiative.

The Justice, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging (JEDIB) committee formed in 2022 in order to support diversity and inclusion in the Health Humanities Consortium and to advance best practices for equity and inclusion in the field of medical and health humanities. This Forum Essay describes our first year of work, including participant-led commitment statement crafting and strategic planning. Health humanities-specific JEDIB work is described in detail in essays about disability justice; gender, sex, sexuality, and reproductive justice; and Indigeneity from a decolonial standpoint. The authors offer transferable techniques for other organizations and institutions with particular attention to heath care and health professions education. Another essay analyzes US institutional and demographic data to show that as an academic program, health humanities gives robust indicators of contributing significantly to student diversity and inclusive success in higher education and medical education. The Forum closes with a reflection on joining the work of equity and inclusion and what new priorities and awareness can emerge to inform health equity scholarship and epistemic justice.

Disability Inclusion in Church Service: Realizing God's Mission of Mercy and Justice

Disability Inclusion in Church Service: Realizing God's Mission of Mercy and Justice

Geoscientists Around the Globe

Coordinated by members of SEG's Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) Committee, TLE's Geoscientists Around the Globe department features geoscientists from technically, geographically, and culturally diverse backgrounds. In this installment, JEDI Committee member Ellie Ardakani interviews Teyyuba Adigozalova, a geophysicist at bp.

Sharing in the Indiscriminate Generosity of God

This article probes three of the findings of the author’s D.Min. project thesis, which explored God’s call of racial justice in a predominantly white, affluent Episcopal parish. The research revealed theological and missional challenges that inhibit the church from joining in God’s mission of justice, namely participants viewing the church as the host of mission, white privilege hindering the practice of listening, and the reluctance of members to articulate the presence and activity of God as it relates to justice. In consideration of these obstacles, this article calls upon the indiscriminate generosity of God for funding the imagination of the missional community for faithful innovation related to racial justice.

Village Justice System Implementation and Performance among Selected Villages in Southern Leyte Province, Philippines

The successful implementation of the Village Justice System (Katarungang Pambarangay) relies on the effectiveness, efficiency, creativity, and resourcefulness of Village Justice Committees. With the enactment of the Local Government Code of 1991 (RA 7160), the authority to resolve community disputes was decentralized to the 42,025 villages nationwide. This study aimed to review and analyzed the implementation and performance of the Village Justice System in selected best perfoming villages of Southern Leyte Province. Specifically, it assessed the degree of law implementation, performance profile, significant relationships between variables, and the severity of problems. Employing both descriptive and inferential methods, the researcher selected top five best performing Village Justice Committees out of 500 in Southern Leyte, based on rankings provided by the DILG-Southern Leyte Provincial Office. The findings reveal excellent performance among the selected Village Justice Committees, demonstrated by high compliance with settlement procedures and deadlines, regular meetings, and quality case settlements. The study suggests a correlation between case settlement quality and committee performance in terms of adherence to procedures and meeting frequency. This exemplary performance is credited to the creative and resourceful approaches of committee members, utilizing best practices, innovative mediation techniques, robust communication strategies, and support system. However, there were problems due to lack of monetary remuneration and non-monetary incentive support as well as other administrative assistance given by Municipal/City Local Government Units (LGUs), National Government Agencies (NGAs), Non-Government Organizations (NGOs)/ Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and the Private Sector. A Development Action Plan is formulated to solve the problems.

Reckoning with Colonial Legacies of Harm: Victoria’s Yoorrook Justice Commission

ABSTRACT Australia’s colonial era is formally over. Yet the legacies of structural inequality, dispossession, exploitation and racism against Indigenous Australia remain alive and well. In 2021, Victoria established the Yoorrook Justice Commission, culminating in a formal truth-telling and treaty process. Seeking to address harm since colonization, the state process is unprecedented both nationally and abroad. This article considers the relevance of the commission to truth recovery, accountability and structural reform in Australia. To date, national efforts to deal with the colonial past have been piecemeal and relatively ineffective. The Yoorrook Justice Commission departs from previous single-issue inquiries as well as from reconciliation policies driven by white-Australian federal institutions. While the Commission is not a panacea for resolving colonial injustice, it provides an important means of relational and structural truth-telling towards more just relations and righting racial wrongs. Ultimately, the Yoorrook Justice Commission sets a valuable precedent for Australia and other postcolonial nations. Its level of Indigenous ownership, its authority as a Royal Commission and the breadth of its inquiry make it a significant transitional justice project.

Criminal Justice Responses to Sex Trafficking in West Bengal, India: A Representative Study from Victims’ Lenses

Known to be the oldest crime on earth, human trafficking has existed as an illegal industry from time immemorial. Statistics reveal that every year, 1–2 million men, women and children are trafficked worldwide, and about 0.22 million (225,000) are from South Asia. Amongst the South-Asian countries, India faces a high-ceilinged rate of sex trafficking and although it made its anti-trafficking interventions quite early, with the inclusion of anti-trafficking provisions in its domestic legislation and signed the United Nations Protocol, yet, the problem persisted and assumed alarming proportions. The principal argument that has been offered for the inept human trafficking responses in India is that the different facets of prevention, protection and prosecution centred on the human rights priorities of the victims are not adequately met. The present article is based on an empirical study conducted by the authors to understand the underpinnings of the working of the Indian criminal justice system (CJS) from the lens of victim’s experiences in West Bengal, India. West Bengal is one of the states located in the eastern part of the country, which shares its borders with Bangladesh and Nepal, and acts as an epicentre of sex trafficking in India. To determine whether the anti-trafficking interventions in India, which are largely based on the rhetoric of raid-to-rescue, are attuned to the specific needs of the sex trafficked survivors; the authors attempted to assess their encounters with and confidence in the CJS. They used cross-sectional surveys to collect qualitative data from 40 victims ( n = 40) across three after-care facilities in West Bengal, namely, Sanlaap, International Justice Mission and Mahima. The purpose of using this phenomenological study was to describe the phenomenon as participant-respondents experience them. In conclusion, the authors pinpointed the necessary interventions required at the legal and procedural levels to make the ICJS more responsive towards the needs of the sex-trafficked victims.

Geoscientists Around the Globe

Manika Prasad of SEG's Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) Committee interviews Ravi Sharma, associate professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee.

Furthering a Social Justice Mission

Furthering a Social Justice Mission

A Common Purpose? Social Work Students’ Social Justice Related Views in Finland and the island of Ireland

Abstract Exploring social work students’ views to understand how equipped they are to pursue the social justice mission of the profession should be of central academic and practical interest. There are, however, surprisingly few empirical studies focussing on social work students’ views on social justice-related issues from a comparative viewpoint. Such knowledge is thought to be of a wider international interest from a number of perspectives, including social work education and student exchange and, in a wider context, for the development of social work as a profession and for discussing the prerequisites for shared international notions of social work. This article explores the views of social work students studying in different socio-economic contexts and welfare regimes in relation to some key aspects assumed to be vital for the profession. The results based on survey data from student cohorts in Finland (N = 608) and the island of Ireland (N = 279) support the general conclusion that there are important, similar patterns of motivations and understandings amongst the students, despite substantial differences in histories, welfare state developments, current policies and social conditions in various jurisdictions. The results are of interest to educators across countries internationally and provide an important basis for future similar studies.

Denial of Polygamy as the Excuse for Men's Sexual Desire

Marriage is a very interesting issue to discuss. Islam allows men to have more than one wife or what is commonly known as polygamy. Polygamy reaps many pros and cons, because many people abuse the permissibility of polygamy. Many women reject polygamy. They are afraid that there will be injustice in the household because their husband is just an ordinary human being. Besides that, there have been many mistakes in polygamy, namely women are used as gratification for the lust of irresponsible Adam. This writing aims to find out the make polygamy rejected and education regarding the problems of polygamous Adams only make women as gratification. The method used by the author in this research is literature study. The data in this study were analyzed using descriptive analysis. This research shows that polygamy was originally carried out as a form of protection for widows, orphans, and the embodiment of the mission of justice and humanity. In fact, the men practice polygamy as a form of gratification under the umbrella of religion. Women seeing this fact reject practice of polygamy, but this refusal does not mean forbidding what is permissible. Under the guise of getting great rewards and following the sunnah, many are found to be reasons for men to practice polygamy. When in fact lust and desire drive them to polygamy. Rejecting the practice of polygamy as a means of satisfying the desires of Adam is not something that prohibited, because such polygamy brings many harms to women.

Clinical Legal Education and Access to Justice During and Beyond COVID-19: Some Reflections of Indian Experience

Legal education aims to impart legal skills and training to law students and develop them into professionals who can render legal services. Clinical legal education (CLE) bridges the gap between the theory and practice of law. CLE has dual purposes of imparting lawyering skills to law students and achieving the social justice mission of law. CLE imparts certain skills and values to students for social justice. Students’ involvement in legal aid clinics makes them more justice-oriented, empathetic and ready for social change. With such orientation, they can assume larger leadership roles as ‘social engineers’. The access to justice crisis compels us to think about legal education’s scope and purpose. In this article, we argue that CLE is indispensable for the attainment of access to justice. During the COVID-19 pandemic, students supervised by clinicians at legal aid clinics worked with communities on issues of ‘migration’, ‘health’ and ‘education’. We argue that the COVID-19 pandemic was instrumental in revealing that legal aid clinics can play a larger role in the attainment of access to justice even during ‘normal times’. This article offers recommendations in order to achieve the goal of securing access to justice for the masses.

The Genesis of Minority Rights in the League of Nations and Beyond

This article examines the development of minority rights and its protection system in the League of Nations. It traces the evolution of the concept of “minority” and the challenges of defining and designating it in international law. The paper also examines the content, guarantees, and implementation of the protection regime that the League of Nations established for certain minority groups in Europe, based on the treaties and instruments adopted at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference and subsequently. The article further investigates the role of the Permanent Court of International Justice and Minority Committees in interpreting and enforcing the minority rights obligations of the concerned states. In the end, the article provides a critical assessment of the achievements and shortcomings of the minority protection systems of the League and reflects on how these systems were integrated into the framework of the United Nations.
 Dhaka University Law Journal, Vol. 33(1), 2023 P.23-48

Geoscientists Around the Globe

Coordinated by members of SEG's Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) Committee, Geoscientists Around the Globe features geoscientists from technically, geographically, and culturally diverse backgrounds. In this installment, JEDI Committee Vice Chair Eileen Martin interviews Yunyue Elita Li, associate professor of earth and planetary sciences and (by courtesy) mathematics at Purdue University.

Geoscientists Around the Globe

Coordinated by members of SEG's Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) Committee, TLE's Geoscientists Around the Globe department features geoscientists from technically, geographically, and culturally diverse backgrounds. In this inaugural installment, JEDI Committee Chair Lillian Flakes interviews Kelsey Bufford, environmental programs manager for the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality.

Indigenous LGBTIQA+ Existences, Safety, & Wellbeing as a Critical Component of Truth and Justice Commissions in Australia.

Transitional justice processes and mechanisms are undertaken to examine, interrogate, and respond to the legacies of massive and serious human right abuses (International Center for Transitional Justice [ICTJ], 2022), with the aim of societal transformation and reconciliation, particularly as this relates to racial and colonial violence (OHCHR, 2022). Globally, gender and sexual minorities are some of the most oppressed groups, enduring significant and overwhelming human rights violations under colonising regimes (Ashe, 2019), yet have been predominantly excluded from these processes. In the past thirty years, there have been more than thirty-five truth commissions in different countries with a past of conflict and violence (Fobear, 2014), yet almost all have failed to embrace the participation and testimony of the LGBTIQA+ community. In Australia, states and territories are progressing truth and justice processes as fundamental mechanisms supporting treaties between these jurisdictions and First Nations Peoples. Colonisation, from first contact to current day, has embedded and enforced strict social constructs of gender and sexuality. Indigenous LGBTIQA+ people have experienced significant historical and continual harms specifically targeting non-compliant genders and/or sexualities. The inclusion of Indigenous LGBTQIA+ communities in Australian truth-telling and transitional justice processes, including the guaranteeing of robust Indigenous LGBTIQA+ voice and testimony, is critical to ensure that truth-telling is accurate and comprehensive. As psychosocial risks are associated with individuals and communities being involved in these processes, Indigenous LGBTIQA+ cultural safety, health, social and emotional wellbeing supports, must be prioritised. This paper proposes direct guidelines and actions for supporting Indigenous LGBTQIA+ safety and wellbeing in truth and justice processes.

The Barriers to the CLE Practice in Russia, in Comparison Light with the European Union and the United Kingdom

Clinical legal education (CLE) is commonly used to refer to a law teaching method that incorporates experiential learning aimed at development of students’ legal knowledge and skills. At the same time, CLE also has social justice mission as it serves the needs of vulnerable members of society. Like any other teaching methods, CLE requires a specific environment and factors to be in place to embrace its mission at maximum level and to allow its learners to reach pre-defined learning outcomes. While researching in three Western European university legal clinics, and then studying the legal clinics in Russia, I have reached the conclusion that CLE in Russia cannot fully exploit its mission and reach its objectives. While some barriers that prevent Russian universities to effectively run CLE are obvious, there are also the ones which will be new to a reader. Below I discuss the factors that could be considered as barriers preventing CLE practice in Russia to be effective in driving for its mission and goals, both from educational and social justice perspectives.