True Legal Equality
Solution: Recognition of vocational training
An education failing to include individuals of all groups, socioeconomic backgrounds, and stages of life is failing its purpose to create critically thinking and engaged individuals, able to actively take part in an Open Society. To help society and all individuals in it face challenges of globalisation, computer- information revolutions, and multicultural communities, we have developed proposals to widen access to education for individuals of all groups, cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds, and stages of life.
Key issue
The main problem that needs to be addressed is the unequal representation and access to opportunities for women and minorities both through legal and social means. Our current legal, cultural and economic system are often unfairly manipulated to benefit only the dominant groups and discriminate against minorities. For example, throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, it has been socioeconomically disadvantaged groups that have been hurt the most. Additionally, this includes unequal access to education, jobs, institutions, healthcare, justice, political participation and many more. There are discriminatory policies in place that exclude and categorize certain groups of people, thus invoking inequalities.
Moreover, commonly the needs and problems unique for the specific minority groups are completely overlooked and ignored. These inequalities are products of social biases based on people’s gender, sexual orientation, race and ethnicity, disabilities, religion and social class. Furthermore, these problems affect the homeless, senior citizens, persons living in poverty, military combat veterans, refugees and immigrants, persons with a serious and persistent mental illness and substance abusers.
As far as gender equality is concerned, women are not treated the same as men, one of the most pressing examples arising in the workplace. In many cases, even though men and women are in the same profession and position, women’s pay is lower than that of their male colleagues. At the same time, women very often have fewer career opportunities to begin with. To some extent, this is a result of the societal bias under which the figure of the caregiver is still associated only with women. They are expected to take care of the children and the house. As far as the figure of the father as caregiver is concerned, it is subject to several negative stereotypes, in fact, it is normal that in some countries, after the birth of a child it is only the mother who takes care of it. These stereotypes do not negatively influence only women but also others, this includes those on the non-binary spectrum and transgender persons, as well as men, trapped within stereotype-based expectations. Furthermore, they affect non-heteronormative relationships and non-nuclear families. It is important to remember that each individual has a specific social and political identity, which creates different modes of discrimination and privilege. Intersectionality is a theoretical framework that identifies these advantages and disadvantages as a combination of factors to help to understand each individual’s experience.
Response
We have several ideas for how to respond to the pressing issues outlined above.
Firstly, we believe there is a need for better enforcement of legal equalities. Despite the existing theoretical frameworks that claim to ensure that people have basic human rights, there has been a failure to accompany this with a solid enforcement plan. We must better protect and enforce these basic entitlements, and if successful, will help many millions (maybe billions) of people globally.
Some of the most important basic rights we believe are largely ignored currently are one’s right to: privacy, movement and residence, nationality, social security, social services, and an education.
We believe that one potential idea could be for the United Nations to be the final arbiter of these rights, having the ability to punish states financially or otherwise deemed appropriate for not adhering to these rights. The right to privacy has been partially addressed in the Global Charter of Truth, however, we want to reiterate the importance of this so that there can be better regulation and information regarding how personal information is used and how people can have control over what is shared or distributed. There should also be a notion of Global Citizenship that protects asylum seekers, providing them with the right to basic services in whichever state they may currently reside or be based in, until they are able to find a more permanent residence. These rights do not have to be the same as national citizens, and the state does not have to solely fund this (as that would likely cause countries to force asylum seekers to move more quickly, having a hard-line approach in order to protect funds). This problem could in turn be solved by having an intergovernmental organisation that provides a certain percentage of funding agreed upon as suitable to survive on.
There should also be a removal of the assumption and expectation (legally) that women are primary caregivers or caretakers, which currently can prove problematic as it prevents many from receiving an education or other opportunities regarding employment in many countries. This could be resolved through equal parental rights to leave and financial support. There must also be a way of assessing whether the current legal responsibilities of non-state actors to respect human rights are sufficient. Many of the barriers that exist to attaining human rights for everyone lie in the differential legal repercussions and enforcement of rights for the public and private sectors. Local, national and international businesses, as well as other non-state actors must be held accountable when it comes to ensuring basic human rights for all are protected, with regulations in place to monitor treatment and protections in place.
Our second category of responses falls under the idea of hastening cultural change. In order to reduce or prevent widespread resistance against asylum seekers’ rights, we must ensure that all people (with and without a form of citizenship) must be aware of what rights Global Citizens are entitled to, so that they know what they are entitled to as an individual, but also what course of action those with citizenships can take to support asylum seekers. Through this large-scale education and re-education of rights, this should become more normalised and better understood, therefore warranting less resistance, in turn making it easier for asylum seekers to claim and fight for their basic rights.
There must also be more done to hasten and promote gender equality on a larger scale. Some countries already aid with promoting equality and ensuring rights to pensions or state aid through pension contributions for caretakers and homemakers, however, this must become a global practice. There must also be an acceptance and active encouragement of people who are not women to take parental leave (i.e. men, but also those in non-heteronormative or other non-traditional relationships). With businesses and other organisations or institutions advocating for such people to take parental leave, this will hopefully speed up the process of cultural acceptance of such practices, making it the social norm. This equality can also be achieved through financial aid and grants to support people with obtaining an education for their children. This would likely make a difference to low-income families, both in the developed and developing world, easing the economic pressures, alleviating the demands on children to contribute to family work or supporting parents in bringing income in, making them more available to attend school and obtain an education. Finally, citizens should be able to sue their governments, states or companies if there are barriers or problems making it hard for people to access or claim social service.
Results
By increasing representation and access to opportunities for minority groups and other such initiatives, we can increase participation by establishing a stakeholder society, help and encourage all people to voice their opinions. Pushing anti-discriminatory and affirmative laws will eliminate cultural barriers. For example, equality of care responsibilities in the law ensures that the father and mother can share equally the care of their children and consequently women would have the same opportunities as their male colleagues in terms of work and earnings. Furthermore, incentives in form of tax credits and non-economic such as free or subsidised healthcare and education would help normalise such practices and hasten the cultural shift.
Since equality is a fundamental human right, it is extremely important for these standards to be adopted on a global level. If citizens of all nations are treated in the same way and receive the necessary aid we have mentioned in the previous paragraphs, it would result in higher representation in public institutions, which will make women and minorities further empower them to get involved in politics as well as other fields. Their trust towards the government would increase and they will be able to take full advantage of their rights as citizens of a democratic society.