Sustainability without Justice is Simply Sustained Injustice

While it is great to see concern for sustainability with regard to flower production in Kenya, sustainability without justice is simply sustained injustice.

While water depletion caused by intensive flower production in Kenya  will affect ordinary Kenyans, as well, the workers in these flower operations make only as much as $2 a day, enough to live in a slum, that means a tin house with or without a latrine, sewage and garbage everywhere,  polluted air and water, subject to violence and rapes with no security and no health care, very little access to education and any other social services such as garbage pick up or sanitation. To seal the deal on this hell, sexual harassment at these flower production plantations is well documented.

What would UK shoppers think if they could see how the people who grew their beautiful and fragrant roses lived? We need an ecological and just way of life because sustainability without justice is simply sustained injustice.

See http://eau.sagepub.com/content/10/2/103.full.pdf for a similar point of view particularly in housing construction.