All States must push forward in the fight against racial discrimination by Ashwini K.P. Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination & related intolerance   Aug. 2024   The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) has issued its findings on Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela after reviewing the seven States parties in its latest session.   The findings contain the Committee’s main concerns and recommendations on the implementation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, as well as positive aspects. Key highlights include:   Belarus   The Committee highlighted its concern about live-threatening conditions faced by migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees at the Belarusian border with the European Union, citing reports of excessive use of force, arbitrary detention and difficulties accessing asylum procedures.   The Committee urged Belarus to take immediate action to protect the lives and safety of those at the border, prevent excessive use of force, and provide human rights training to border guards and law enforcement officials. It also called for continued cooperation with international organisations and other stakeholders to enhance human rights protections and ensure asylum procedures meet international standards..   Bosnia and Herzegovina   The Committee remained concerned about the persistent discrimination and marginalisation of Roma, which hinder their full enjoyment of rights under the Convention. Key issues include poor living conditions, limited access to public services and formal employment, especially for Roma women, inadequate healthcare, and low education enrollment and attendance rates for Roma children. The Committee urged the State party to intensify efforts to address systemic racial discrimination against Roma.   It recommended improving Roma housing and living conditions through genuine consultation, ensuring access to employment and vocational training, combating workplace discrimination, and increasing Roma children's enrollment and attendance in education. Additionally, it called for accessible and culturally appropriate healthcare services, particularly for Roma women and girls..   Pakistan   Highlighting escalated incidents in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa from May to June 2024, the Committee underscored its concern over blasphemy accusations and subsequent mob lynchings and the destruction of places of worship, particularly targeting ethnic and ethno-religious minorities. The Committee questioned the impunity for these crimes, citing few arrests and convictions. The Committee underlined the right to fair trial of those accused of blasphemy, highlighting its concerns over the treatment of suspects, including deaths in police custody and prolonged legal proceedings.   It urged Pakistan to prevent and protect individuals and communities against violent reprisals, to repeal its blasphemy laws, ensure fair trials, and prosecute all acts of violence.   The Committee was alarmed by the mass exodus under the Illegal Foreigners’ Repatriation Plan, which saw 700,000 individuals, including 101,000 between April and June 2024, deported or returned to Afghanistan..   Iran   The Committee voiced serious concerns over reports of grave human rights violations and abuses committed by law enforcement officers against protestors belonging to ethnic and ethno-religious minority groups during the November 2019, July 2021 and September 2022 protests, particularly in the provinces predominately inhabited by these minority groups. It urged Iran to immediately conduct impartial investigations into allegations of violations and abuses of human rights committed by State actors during these protests and to provide reparation for the victims.   The Committee expressed concern over reports that ethnic and ethno-religious minorities are overrepresented in the criminal justice system and are disproportionately subjected to arbitrary detention and death sentences for broadly defined offences under the Islamic Criminal Code, as well as for drug-related offences..   Iraq   The Committee was concerned about reports that the decision to close all camps for internally displaced persons (IDP) by the end of 2024 could lead to forced and involuntary return of IDPs from ethnic and ethno-religious minority groups, warning that many of these individuals would have to return to areas severely damaged by armed conflict, with inadequate infrastructure.   The Committee urged Iraq to ensure that returns or resettlements are safe and genuinely voluntary. It also recommended efforts to integrate IDPs, rebuild their communities, and restore essential services while combating stigmatization and guaranteeing equal access to education, healthcare, employment, and housing, as protected under the Convention.   The Committee stated its concern over delays in providing reparations to victims, particularly women who have suffered grave human rights violations, and highlighted the absence of a legislative framework for prosecuting war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide..   The United Kingdom   The Committee expressed its concern about the persistence of hate crimes, hate speech and xenophobic incidents on various platforms and by politicians and public figures. It was particularly concerned about recurring racist acts and violence against ethnic and ethno-religious minorities, migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers by extremist far-right and white supremacist individuals and groups, including the violent acts committed in late July and early August 2024.   In calling for action, the Committee urged the United Kingdom to implement comprehensive measures to curb racist hate speech and xenophobic rhetoric, including from political and public figures. The Committee emphasized the need for thorough investigations and strict penalties for racist hate crimes, and effective remedies for the victims and their families.   The Committee expressed concern about the disproportionate impact of police stop-and-search practices, including strip searches, on ethnic minorities, especially children..   Venezuela   The Committee was seriously concerned about the negative impact of mining on indigenous lands and the livelihood of indigenous people. It highlighted the situation in the National Strategic Development Zone “Orinoco Mining Arc”, where indigenous territories were militarized, and military operations were carried out without due consultation, as well as human rights abuses and violations committed against indigenous peoples by actors linked to State entities, including members of the National Armed Forces, and non-State armed groups.   The Committee urged Venezuela to refrain from deploying military forces and conducting military operations in indigenous territories without prior consultation with the indigenous peoples concerned, and to establish effective accountability mechanisms for possible human rights violations if the use of military forces is strictly essential..   http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/08/un-committee-elimination-racial-discrimination-publishes-findings-belarus http://www.ohchr.org/en/treaty-bodies/cerd   Ahead of the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, a group of UN experts issued the following joint statement:   “The commemoration of the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is a moment to take stock of the persistent gaps in the implementation of our shared commitment to protect hundreds of millions of people whose human rights continue to be violated due to racial discrimination. It is also an opportunity to recommit to our promise to fight all forms of racism everywhere.   Through our work, we see clearly that racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, and related intolerance continue to be a cause of conflict around the world. We are witnessing a dangerous regression in the fight against racism and racial discrimination in many spaces. Minorities, people of African descent, people of Asian descent, Indigenous Peoples, migrants, including asylum seekers and refugees, are particularly vulnerable as they often face discrimination in all aspects of their lives based on their racial, ethnic or national origin, skin colour or descent.   In this regard, it is crucial that States implement their international human rights obligations and commitments under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action.   Initiatives aimed at revitalising multilateralism, including the Summit of the Future, provide an important opportunity to firmly establish the collective responsibility of States in ensuring concrete progress to address structural and systemic racial discrimination and its root causes.   We urge all States to push forward in the fight against racial discrimination. We also call on States to proclaim a second International Decade for People of African Descent, to ensure greater recognition, justice, and development for people of African descent, including by engaging meaningfully in reparatory justice processes for past injustices.”   July 2024   Racism and AI: “Bias from the past leads to bias in the future”.   “Recent developments in generative artificial intelligence and the burgeoning application of artificial intelligence continue to raise serious human rights issues, including concerns about racial discrimination,” says Ashwini K.P., UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, and related intolerance.   There is an enduring and harmful notion that technology is neutral and objective, according to Ashwini, during her interactive dialogue for the launch of her new report at the UN Human Rights Council.   In her report, she explores how this assumption is allowing artificial intelligence to perpetuate racial discrimination.   “Generative artificial intelligence is changing the world and has the potential to drive increasingly seismic societal shifts in the future,” Ashwini K.P. said. “I am deeply concerned about the rapid spread of the application of artificial intelligence across various fields. This is not because artificial intelligence is without potential benefits. In fact, it presents possible opportunities for innovation and inclusion.”   A clear example of how racial biases are reproduced through technological advances is predictive policing. Predictive policing tools make assessments about who will commit future crimes, and where any future crime may occur, based on location and personal data.   “Predictive policing can exacerbate the historical over policing of communities along racial and ethnic lines,” Ashwini K.P. said. “Because law enforcement officials have historically focused their attention on such neighbourhoods, members of communities in those neighbourhoods are overrepresented in police records. This, in turn, has an impact on where algorithms predict that future crime will occur, leading to increased police deployment in the areas in question.”   According to her findings, location-based predictive policing algorithms draw on links between places, events, and historical crime data to predict when and where future crimes are likely to occur, and police forces plan their patrols accordingly.   “When officers in overpoliced neighbourhoods record new offences, a feedback loop is created, whereby the algorithm generates increasingly biased predictions targeting these neighbourhoods. In short, bias from the past leads to bias in the future".   As with location-based tools, past arrest data on people, often tainted by systemic racism in the criminal justice systems, can skew the future predictions of the algorithms, she said.   “The use of variables such as socioeconomic background, education level and location can act as proxies for race and perpetuate historical biases,” Ashwini K.P. said.   The report also provides a brief analysis of efforts to manage and regulate AI at the national, regional, and international levels.   “Artificial intelligence technology should be grounded in international human rights law standards,” Ashwini K.P. said. “The most comprehensive prohibition of racial discrimination can be found in the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.”   There are other rights where AI has posed a risk including AI in healthcare where some tools for creating health risk scores have been shown to have race-based correction factors. Ashwini K.P. also found when AI is applied to educational tools it can include racial bias.   For example, in academic and success algorithms, due to the design of the algorithms and the choice of data, the tools often score racial minorities as less likely to succeed academically and professionally, thus perpetuating exclusion and discrimination.   In his vision statement, “Human Rights: A Path for Solutions,” UN Human Rights Chief Volker Turk said generative artificial intelligence offers new opportunities to move forward on the enjoyment of human rights, however, its negative societal impacts are already proliferating.   “In areas where the risk to human rights is particularly high, such as law enforcement, the only option is to pause until sufficient safeguards are introduced,” Turk said.   For Ashwini K.P., while artificial intelligence does have real potential for impact, it is not a solution for all societal issues and must be effectively managed to balance its benefits and risks. Regulating AI is also a way to ensure this balance.   She recommended that States address the challenge of regulating AI with a greater sense of urgency bearing in mind the perpetuation of racial discrimination; develop AI regulatory frameworks based on an understanding of systemic racism and Human Rights Law, enshrine a legally binding obligation to conduct comprehensive human rights due diligence assessments, including explicit criteria to assess racial and ethnic bias, in the development and deployment of all AI technologies; and consider prohibiting the use of AI systems that have been shown to have unacceptable human rights risks, including those that foster racial discrimination.   “Placing human rights at the centre of how we develop, use and regulate technology is absolutely critical to our response to these risks,” Turk said.   http://www.ohchr.org/en/stories/2024/07/racism-and-ai-bias-past-leads-bias-future Visit the related web page
	Overhaul discriminatory laws and practices enabling economic violence against women by UN Human Rights Council Interactive Dialogue with Working Group on Discrimination against Women and Girls   June 2024   Economic violence as a form of gender-based violence against women and girls, by Volker Turk, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights:   "We owe the women’s rights movement some of the most extraordinary progress in human rights of our generation. And it is important to honour and celebrate this progress.   Yet the persistent scourge of gender-based violence in one of its insidious forms, shows that progress is both hard won, and fragile.   At its simplest, violence against women and girls is an egregious expression of power domination and patriarchy indeed. It is a blunt roadblock to gender equality and the ultimate benefits that this can bring everyone, including greater development and peace.   Gender-based violence persists because of pervasive cultures of toxic masculinity and misogyny. It is not specific to cultures, or regions, or religions. It is widespread, fuelled by centuries-old mindsets and practices that are still dangerously prevalent, almost everywhere.   Any form of gender-based violence is a form of overt control over women and girls. To perpetuate their subordination. To stereotype, degrade, coerce, and humiliate. To deny them freedom, and strip them of agency to make decisions.   Today, regardless of income or background, all women and girls live with the threat of gender-based violence. Almost one in three women have been subjected to some form of it at least once in their life, be that physical, sexual, psychological or economic.   One in three. If one in three men globally were subject to such devastating and pervasive harm, we would be convening an emergency summit.   Economic violence against women and girls is one of the forms of gender-based violence that even today too often goes unseen, and unregulated. But while it may not manifest in bruises and wounds, it can be just as harmful as physical violence, trapping women and girls in cycles of denigration and inequality.   Economic control. Economic sabotage. Economic exploitation. These are the three forms of economic violence playing out all around the world.   Restricting a woman’s access to money and assets. Tracking her spending. Ensuring she cannot open a bank account, or make financial decisions. Preventing her from seeking employment, or going to school. Taking her wages, or her pension. Accruing debt under her name.   In all its forms, economic violence is facilitated by archaic gender norms that consider men the financial decision makers. In all its forms, women are stifled, and blocked from living a life of autonomy.   We know that economic violence most commonly occurs in the home, and often interconnects with physical or sexual violence. But it can also be enabled, even perpetrated by the State through discriminatory legal frameworks which restrict women’s access to credit, employment, social protection, or property and land rights.   The world is failing to deliver on the promise of gender equality. Failing to put in place the measures needed to ensure half of humanity enjoy their fundamental rights and freedoms.   The numbers paint a startling picture. Some 3.9 billion women worldwide face legal barriers affecting their economic participation. Women earn just 77 cents for every dollar paid to men. Ninety-two countries lack provisions mandating equal pay for work of equal value. The wealth gap between women and men globally stands at a staggering 100 trillion USD.   Women’s equality lies at the core of all human rights, of human dignity and of our collective future.   To put a stop to economic violence, and proactively to ensure economic equity, we need a complete overhaul of discriminatory laws and practices. Gender equality needs to be positively fostered through laws governing all areas of life – economic, public and political. And we need policy measures to ensure that these laws are actually applied in practice.   Policy measures that protect and empower women’s economic, social and cultural rights. Access to decent work, including equal pay for work of equal value. Quality education that promotes human rights, gender equality and respect. The full realization of sexual and reproductive health and rights. Equal property ownership. Equal access to and control over financial resources. Shared childcare responsibilities and adequate childcare options. And above all, choice and opportunity to define one’s own life.   Where economic violence occurs, we must make stronger efforts to ensure survivors can seek justice and remedy. We need better complaint mechanisms. Better economic and social support systems. Better and more widely available assistance. And, importantly, perpetrators must be brought to justice.   Violence against women and girls – in all its forms – is abhorrent and inexcusable. It prevents their full and equal participation in society, suffocating their potential, and stealing choice and opportunity. We must take tangible actions to put a stop to it.   Nada Al-Nashif, United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, said global inequality and poverty were growing. Around 4.8 billion people, more likely to be women, were poorer than they were pre-COVID19 pandemic. Currently, more than 10 per cent of women globally were trapped in a cycle of extreme poverty, and as many as 342 million women (8 per cent) would still be living in extreme poverty by 2030. Current economic, legal and policy frameworks hindered the achievement of gender equality.   The existence of gender discriminatory laws and practices had a severe impact on women’s and girls’ enjoyment of economic rights, including the right to work and the right to social protection. A study showed that in 102 countries, women’s rights to inherit their husband’s property were denied under customary, religious, or traditional laws and practices. Even when laws granted women equal economic rights as men, these were often not implemented.   Women and girls were still perceived as the primary caregivers, meaning globally on average, they spent 2.4 hours a day more on such work than men. The lack of the recognition and the unequal distribution of care and support work deprived women and girls of equal opportunities to education, work, and participation in public life.   Furthermore, unsustainable and unprecedented levels of global public debt, combined with conditionalities of foreign financial assistance, were constraining the fiscal space of States and leading to drastic cuts in public services and denials of economic, social and cultural rights. Women would likely disproportionately face the brunt of such cuts, as they were over-represented in the public services’ workforce.   It was time to re-evaluate the concepts of unlimited economic growth, based on deeply embedded gender and other inequalities within and across countries, unsustainable exploitation of the environment, and the disregard for States’ obligations to realise economic, social, and cultural rights. There needed to be an economic paradigm shift towards a human rights economy which dismantled structural barriers and prioritised investments in human rights.   Hyshyama Hamin, Campaign Manager of the Global Campaign for Equality in Family Law, said no country worldwide had achieved full legal equality between women and men, according to the World Bank.   Inequality often started in the family. Women and girls globally were affected by discriminatory family laws and practices, which consequently had multiple intersecting impacts in all other areas of their lives. Inequality in family law limited women’s and girls’ right to education, employment, economic independence, and full participation in society.   It further increased their risk of facing gender-based violence and harmful traditional practices, such as child and forced marriage. The Global Campaign had noted from multiple contexts that unequal family laws and practices impacted the financial rights of women.   According to the World Bank, Women, Business and the Law 2024 report, of 190 economies, 76 countries restricted women's property rights; 19 countries had laws that allowed husbands to legally prevent their wives from working; 43 countries did not grant widows the same inheritance rights as widowers, and 41 countries prevented daughters from inheriting the same proportion of assets as sons. Women performed 2.5 times more unpaid care work than men, which was largely invisible and unaccounted for in national economies.   The positive impacts of equal family laws and practices on women’s economic rights were far-reaching. Accelerated progress toward gender equality could result in huge economic gains for a country.   To accelerate progress, the international community needed to prioritise and promote egalitarian family laws and practices; and all States needed to ensure their family laws and practices were aligned with article 16 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. All actors needed to support family law reform as a priority.   Emanuela Pozzan, Senior Gender Specialist at the International Labour Organization, said care needed to be part of a just transition. The recently concluded International Labour Conference in Geneva adopted a resolution which focused on decent work and the care economy, and affirmed that care work was fundamental to human, social, economic and environmental well-being, as well as to sustainable development. This care work, paid and unpaid, was essential to all other work.   For the first time, the international community shared a common understanding of the care economy and acknowledged that a well-functioning and robust care economy was critical for building resilience to crises, and for achieving gender equality and inclusion while addressing other inequalities.   The current social organization of care placed a disproportionate share of unpaid care work on women, which hindered women’s economic inclusion and effective labour market participation, widening gender gaps in the world of work, and leaving many without adequate access to social protection.   The distribution of unpaid care work was highly feminised. Women performed 76.2 per cent of the total amount of unpaid care work: 16 billion hours per day – 3.2 times more than men. While such care could be rewarding, its excessive intensity and arduousness could undermine the economic opportunities, well-being, and enjoyment of rights for unpaid care providers.   Over 600 million women remained outside the labour force because of family responsibilities. Over 380 million care workers, two thirds of whom were women, made up the global paid care workforce, where they were less well paid and less protected.   Recent years had brought a worldwide improvement in maternity protection policies, leave and care services, thanks to social dialogue. However, the existing challenges and gaps in care leave policies and services could not be ignored. The resolution was clear: action needed to be taken. Investing in the care economy was an added value for all countries, societies and people.   Savitri Bisnath, Senior Director of Global Policy, the Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy at The New School, said that the role of the economy was in part to facilitate human flourishing. The material realities of women and girls were linked to many sectors and policies: from health care, education, employment, sovereign debt burdens, taxation, and climate change.   Economic policies could help ensure that the root causes of, and structural barriers to, poverty and inequalities experienced by women and girls were intentionally addressed and redressed for equitable and inclusive economies and societies.   There was consensus that the current economic model was failing to deliver economic prosperity for all. For example, it was common knowledge that women were often paid less than men for the same work and that within countries women were also discriminated against based on race, age and geographic location.   The United Nations Secretary-General had pointed to the many challenges facing the world community, including geopolitical and economic fragmentation with growing inequalities mostly affecting women and girls, the cost-of-living crisis, and the poorest countries on debt row facing insolvency and default, all of which led down the path of deepening instability.   There was an urgent need for reform of the global debt architecture. The ideal of free human beings enjoying freedom from fear and want could only be achieved if conditions were created whereby everyone could enjoy their economic, social and cultural rights, as well as their civil and political rights.   Economic policies needed to be aligned with human rights and environmental justice goals. An economy grounded in human rights principles and standards would facilitate transparency and accountability, as well as space for social dialogue, scrutiny and participation. It was essential for increasing trust, cohesion and inclusion within societies.   http://www.ungeneva.org/en/news-media/meeting-summary/2024/06/le-conseil-des-droits-de-lhomme-se-penche-sur-le-probleme-de-la http://www.ungeneva.org/en/news-media/meeting-summary/2024/06/le-conseil-des-droits-de-lhomme-entend-une-mise-en-garde-contre http://www.ohchr.org/en/statements-and-speeches/2024/06/high-commissioner-economic-violence-against-women-gender-based http://news.un.org/en/story/2024/06/1151616 http://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/wg-women-and-girls Visit the related web page
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