FIINOVATION OBSERVES – WORLD SOCIAL JUSTICE DAY

World Social Justice Day is observed annually on 20^th February for promoting efforts to tackle global issues such as poverty, unemployment, gender equality and exclusion to create an equitable society for all. It promotes social justice, solidarity, harmony & equality for marginalised communities, women and immigrants. The theme of World Justice Day in 2017 is “Preventing conflict and sustaining peace through decent work”. On this day many organisations including the United Nations and International Labour Organisation present plans and issue statements regarding the promotion of social justice. Additionally, campaign groups, trade unions and volunteers are also invited to mark their support on this day.

In 2007, the World Day of Social Justice was introduced in the UN agenda. It urged governments to focus on three important aspects;

a) reaffirmation of commitments made in Geneva Development Summit 1995,

b) recalling the commitment to promote national and global economic systems based on the principles of justice, equity, democracy participation, transparency, accountability and inclusion and

c) reaffirming the commitment made in the 2005 World Summit Outcome to full and productive employment and decent work for all, including for women and young people.

Keeping focus on these aspects will remove the barriers that people face because of their gender, age, race, ethnicity, religion, culture or disability.

Equality is the basic fundamental right of every society and in order to achieve the same, governments have created a framework for action to promote social justice at national, regional and international levels. The governments accept the fact that holistic economic growth can be achieved only by promoting equitable distribution of income, resources and providing everyone an equal opportunity for growth and development irrespective of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, culture or disability. They promote the belief that only social justice can help in achieving the peaceful coexistence within and among the nations.

United Nations also promotes social justice as part of their global mission to achieve equality for all. The recent adoption of the Declaration on Social Justice for a Fair Globalization by the International Labour Organisation is one example of the UN system’s commitment to social justice. The Declaration focuses on guaranteeing fair outcomes for all through employment, social protection, social dialogue, fundamental principles and rights at work.

Fiinovation through its association with corporations for CSR and Sustainability initiatives, have always promoted social justice. It believes that there are serious challenges in front of us, including financial crises, insecurity, poverty, exclusion and inequality within and among societies and considerable bottlenecks to further social integration and full participation in the economy. The road ahead would be to incorporate social integration activities within the social development programmes to boost equitable growth in the country.

“With exclusion and inequality on the rise, we must step up efforts to ensure that all people, without discrimination, are able to access opportunities to improve their lives and those of others.” – Former Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

By Manisha Bhatia

Media & Communications, Fiinovation

FIINOVATION REVIEWS: WHY INDIA NEEDS TO REVISE ITS ABORTION LAWS

The recent landmark judgment given by the Supreme Court of India allowing a woman to terminate her 24-week old pregnancy has opened up the doors of discussion on obsolete pregnancy laws, need to increase awareness about abortion and change the pregnancy laws as well as end stigma prevalent in the country. On Monday, Supreme Court relaxed the 20-week legal ceiling on abortion, allowing a woman to abort her 24-week baby diagnosed with Anencephaly, a life-threatening congenital defect in which a baby is born without the parts of the brain, skull and scalp.

India’s Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act legalises abortions upto 20 weeks only under certain circumstances such as threat to mother’s or child’s physical or mental health or if the unborn baby is diagnosed with severe physical or mental abnormalities or both.

As per the data revealed by the Union Ministry of Health & Welfare and World Health Organisation, there are 56 million induced abortions in the world every year from which around 22 million are unsafe abortions. The practice leads to 47,000 deaths and an estimated 5 million women develop some form of disability. In India, 10 women are killed everyday due to abortions as an estimated 6.8 million choose unsafe methods of abortion due to lack of knowledge and laws. Being responsible for 8% of the overall maternal deaths, unsafe abortions is the third biggest reason of the women dying due to child-birth related causes in India. Lack of skilled medical staff is also another big reason for women falling to the prey of unhealthy abortion practices. The weak and marginalised section of the society suffers the most due to lack of knowledge and stigma associated with the medical practice.

“Vulnerable groups including women with disabilities or mental health problems, rape and incest survivors and widows and single women who may need more support because of the tremendous social stigma may prevent them from seeking legal abortion services in the early stage of pregnancy”, says Mumbai-based Dr. Nozer Sheriar, former secretary-general of FOGSI (Federation of Obstetrics and Gynaecologist Societies of India), who was also part of the Union Health Ministry’s expert panel that drafted the amendments.

Looking at the appalling figures and gaps observed in abortion laws, the Union Health Ministry has proposed certain amendments from relaxation in law to increasing the number of skilled workforce. “The amendments are women-centric as opposed to the provider-centric provisions in the MTP Act. The proposed bill aims to give each woman control over decision-making related to her life and body,” said a Union Health Ministry official.

The key changes proposed by the expert panel recommends widening the network of service providers through training so that nurses, village health workers and Auxiliary nursery midwives (ANMs), ayurveda, unani and homeopathy practitioners can use the medical methods to terminate the pregnancies by relaxing the norms from 20-week to 24-week for the “vulnerable” groups who may have delayed in seeking services due to lack of knowledge or stigma. After the completed training, the ANMs can terminate pregnancies upto 7 weeks, nurses and alternative practitioners upto 9 weeks through drugs. However, the surgical abortions can only be done by the registered physicians.

Other proposed amendments include the inclusion of confidentiality clause which will be helpful for the PROCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) Act, which requires all the pregnancies involving minors should be reported to the police. The clause under the Act states that minors need consent from their guardian before seeking abortion. It also recommends to change the restrictive terminologies and make a uniform law for “women” irrespective of their marital status and changing the preference from “husband” to “partners”.

Fiinovation also supports the proposed amendments as they are in-line with the changing scenarios and will provide incredible benefits to women in advancing their rights on their own bodies and health. The lack of support and relaxation in norms have often forced women to resort to desperate measures falling to unsafe abortion methods leading to numerous health problems.

By Manisha Bhatia

Media & Communications, Fiinovation

#CSRAudit: New age reporting mechanism for Stakeholders

The corporations around the globe are now shifting their focus to improve the reporting tools and mechanisms with a view to give a comprehensive picture of the activities to the stakeholders. A growing number of companies see sustainability reporting as a means to drive greater innovation in their business operations to create a competitive advantage in the market. Fiinovation believes that, there is an urgent need for new reporting techniques & reporting mechanisms to be introduced in the market which are simple, understandable and clearly conveys the impact to the stakeholders.

#CSRAudit can be the answer to those corporations who want to bring greater transparency & accountability in their CSR interventions while keeping the stakeholders engaged and informed. Often organisations neglect stakeholders’ participation, but their engagement is vital for successful running of the project. Now, it is up to organisations what methods, service or tools they will employ to inform and engage stakeholders about the projects undertaken. Time has come for organisations to start adopting new age reporting mechanisms such as #CSRAudit to effectively communicate the impact of the CSR activities and strengthen the process of engagement with the stakeholders.

#CSRAudit can help the organisations in reducing the loopholes between the planning and implementation of the programme and helps in assessing the long term impact based on audit findings. It can also prove helpful in improving the strategy of execution after the data of the ongoing activities are collected. Fiinovation believes that in today’s competitive global market, organisation’s image is everything when it comes to attracting new ventures and projects for growth and expansion. ‘Brand’ building is one such area which remains on top of the priority list of every company or organisation whether small or large. This can also be addressed through conducting #CSRAudit for better brand positioning and image building to earn long term benefits.

Another area which stakeholders would like to know about i.e. optimum utilization of resources and manpower for operational efficiency. #CSRAudit can help in gathering data and provide insights to stakeholders to channelize the resources in the right direction for better utilisation of resources to achieve greater efficiency and output.

Fiinovation believes that #CSRAudit is imperative for achieving not only organizational goals but improving the overall performance of the organisation. No matter what methods you choose to utilize in keeping stakeholders informed of project progress, but it is important to keep them involved in the project planning process. Therefore, Fiinovation recommends that Indian companies should not ignore the benefits of CSR audit thinking it as an additional cost burden, rather consider it for reaping long term benefits.

By – Rohit Kaul

Media & Communications – Fiinovation