The spring and summer newsletter of Canadian Jesuits International is all about human rights. It is available in PDF format here:
In the cover article, the director of the Jesuit Social Justice and Ecology Secretariat (SJES), Xavier Jeyaraj SJ, focuses on community rights in his home country of India, where Jesuits have followed a rights based approach (RBA) to their justice and development work for almost half a century now. In the last three decades in particular Jesuit social centres have collaborated with Dalits (former “Untouchables”), indigenous peoples, women and other marginalized peoples to defend human rights and legal entitlements for the well being of all.
A show of support at a meeting of indigenous people in San Sebastian, Chiapas. (Photo: M. Lopez-Villegas/CJI)
A second article by lawyer Ivette Galván García describes indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination in Chiapas, Mexico. She highlights the indigenous Tseltal people’s struggle to secure political rights to their own forms of governance based on traditional values. She also indicates how the accompaniment of the Jesuit Centre for Research and Social Action for Peace is integral to this struggle.
The human rights theme continues in an article about the creation of the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE) office, which will have powers to investigate allegations of harm arising in Canadian mining companies’ overseas operations and to issue recommendations for redress and prevention. As well, there is an update on Canadian Jesuits’ support for human rights in Honduras, especially freedom of expression and political participation.
Finally the newsletter gives some CJI news, including the solidarity with Latin America event that CJI hosted in February and the Youth 4 Others Social Justice Day in April.
As CJI director Jenny Cafiso notes in her editorial, this issue of Mission News underscores the shift in the work of CJI and Jesuit partners in the Global South from a needs-based or service delivery approach to a rights based approach: “According to this approach, peace and development are only possible if people who have been marginalized and denied their rights are empowered.”
We hope you enjoy the issue! Thank you for your support.
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