William Gladstone once stated that “justice delayed is justice denied.” To define social justice, in my opinion, social justice is but not limited to equality, diversity, human rights, responsibilities, and legalization. Due to the multi-variant nature of social justice, it is hard to declare guilt and to meet the expectations of a fully righteous legal system. In response to this problem, people should give more attention to three social minority groups which include genocide sufferers, homosexual people, and sexual assault victims.
       The first social phenomenon the society should consider is the declaration of guilt during the genocide and the definition of the word genocide itself. In many cases, even though hundreds of people died, some even were not declared as genocide. For instance, the ongoing Darfur genocide has begun in 2003. There were 2 armed forces that had waged war. As a result of this, more than 200,000 people were killed and 22 million others were forced to leave their hometowns. Although the reality has been solid proof of the ignorance of the government and the brutality of the forces, the African Union and the European Union have not declared the Darfur conflict as genocide. Another example is the Nanking Massacre that happened in the year 1937-1938. In December 1937, the Japanese Imperial Army invaded Nanking, the then capital city of China, and killed over 300,000 people. Almost half of the population in Nanking were killed. Not only killing, but the Imperial Japanese army had also done the most unhuman act in which they had raped over 20,000 Nanking women. Some of them were older than 60 and some of them were even younger than 8, which is the most notorious comfort women system. Even though the proof of Nanking people dying and women suffering, due to the complexity of defining genocide, the mass killing that happened in Nanking is now still considered as a massacre, not genocide. The International Law defines genocide as any violence “committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.” Therefore, if there were no absolute proof of “intent” to kill or destroy the nation, it is very hard to declare those cases as genocide. Moreover, the tension between peace and injustice has always been a discussed topic in international society. From the above cases, we can clearly see that it will continue to be an endless argument of whether an event of hundreds of people being killed in a nation or ethnic group, can be defined as genocide. It will also be a long way for us to go to form a more comprehensive international law system and to declare guilt for people who were guilty.
       Other than the suffering of genocide, homosexual minorities' rights are also ignored or suppressed in our society. First, homosexual people found it very difficult to speak out in the labor market, workplace, and hospitals. Right now, at the international level, 81 countries have prohibited discrimination in the workplace because of sexual orientation. In Canada, citizens can always find places marked LGBTQ2S+ welcome tag in stores or at workplaces. The federal and provincial governments have also published protection laws on LGBTQ2S+ rights. However, people in the LGBTQ2S+ group are still feeling exhausted from spending time and energy concealing their true selves. Discrimination in the workplace based on sexual orientation not only affects their happiness and mental health but also has a major impact on their productivity during work hours. In addition, the law on same-sex marriage and adoption should also take place when we consider homosexual rights. In 2005, Canada passed The Federal Civil Marriage Act, making same-sex marriage legal country-wide, and it became the 4th country to legalize same-sex marriage. Nevertheless, it is still life-threatening for some LGBTQ2S+ people to get married in certain countries. Due to this, the international society should unite all the countries together, by giving maximum rights for LGBTQ2S+ couples and by allowing them to get married is a rough but essential step. Finally, many teenagers now are experiencing homophobic and transphobic violence in schools, such as physical and verbal attacks or mental manipulation. The reason why so many LGBTQ2S+ students have been bullied is that their gender expression does not fit into binary gender norms. For example, some of the boys may be perceived as effeminate and girls may be perceived as masculine, but what’s the problem with that? Everyone has their own personalities and characteristics, and by expressing their authentic selves, they can live happier and easier life. To sum up, though Canada has remarkable progress in legalizing homosexual marriage and issuing laws against discrimination toward LGBTQ2S+, the whole international society still must put effort into pushing some countries to take action and stop the discrimination against homosexual people.
       Besides genocide and homosexuality, the sexual assault reporting rate is under-reported in Canada. It dropped from 12% in 2009 to 5% in 2014, which uncover some facts that those victims may not have the ability to report. There are a few reasons why. The first reason is that after the abuse, the victim will experience a series of psychological responses that affect his/her ability to report, such as guilt and embarrassment. Another reason that causes victims to not report is that they always experience secondary victimization during the process of reporting to police, friends, or family members. Many people experienced PTSD after the incident and reporting the crime, re-victimized them.  In addition to the above 2 reasons, many victims are feeling young and powerless, and they blame themselves, being afraid to bring dishonor to their family, etc. Most importantly, they don’t have faith in the current criminal justice system. Therefore, by raising awareness in schools or public places, and educating people about the sexual assault itself, we can help reduce the crime rate. However, building a more reliable legal system and giving more help to victims are things the government needs to do nowadays.
       All in all, social justice is the most complex and most discussed issue in our society, and because of its complexity, it is impossible to convict guilt for every criminal and to construct a complete legal system that is satisfactory to all. This is causing several social effects such as the genocide due to ethnicity, religion, and race, discriminations towards homosexuality, and the follow-up psychological counseling of sexual assault victims. While the nation is developing technology and science, the building up of the legal system in the modern world is also extremely important to support a safe and harmonious society.