“We do not want a situation where the poor have to wait for more than ten years before they can receive justice and closure. Justice delayed is often justice denied,” he said during the September 14 interview.
With the Listeriosis Outbreak class action lawsuit likely to take time, Fr. Stan said that the role of the Church is “not solely a technical process” but one that involves “pastoral accompaniment, including counselling and healing, for the victims of human rights abuses by businesses.”
In its quest to achieve justice for the victims of human rights violations by Multinational Corporations (MNCs), the JPC Coordinator said that his office is also seeking to shine light on the human face behind corporate greed and economic globalization.
In working with the victims of the Listeriosis Outbreak, JPC officials provide a platform for the victims “to regain their voice and their ability to tell their stories,” Fr. Stan told ACI Africa and added that before COVID-19, they were partnering in this endeavor with artists and the historical Constitutional Hill Museum.
“In relation to victims of listeriosis, the voiceless have been able to tell their stories: a story of a family where both parents died on the same day from listeriosis leaving behind two orphans who are now suffering to make ends meet; a story of a neighborhood in Soweto where three families lost their loved ones on the same day after eating listeria-infected meat,” he told ACI Africa.
The victims of listeriosis in South Africa, Fr. Stan continued, tell “a story of a young mother who lost a husband while pregnant and later delivered a baby who now has adverse health conditions as a result of listeriosis infection. She lost her job because she spent more than five months in hospital with her sick daughter. She has no resources to cover regular medical bills for her sick daughter.”
“These are all stories of pain, arising from corporate greed. Our ministry as a Church has been to accompany the victims so that they transform their stories into that of hope and justice,” the South African Priest told ACI Africa during the September 14 interview.
The capitalist and corporate driven economic globalization, Fr. Stan further said, has challenged the Church in Africa to focus not only on its prophetic role of speaking truth to power and politicians but “to include an additional dimension ... namely, demanding human rights accountability from powerful multinational corporations.”
Besides Tiger Brands company, Fr. Stan also highlighted other MNCs such as vehicle manufacturing company, Toyota and mining companies whose operations in South Africa “have caused incidents of massive harm in the lives of the poor.”
JPC officials are also participating in class action lawsuits to hold mining companies “to account for their failure to prevent an epidemic of silicosis and black lung disease among the poor who worked in gold mining companies and coal mining companies respectively,” he told ACI Africa.
