Geneva/Strasbourg/Vienna/Warsaw, 19 March 2021 – The pandemic
poses unprecedented challenges for governments, health systems and societies at
large, with many people in despair. We also witnessed solidarity with
generosity, care and commitment towards the most vulnerable. This crisis offers
us a unique opportunity to create more inclusive and equal societies, said the
heads of four human rights institutions ahead of the International Day for the
Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
Maria Marouda, Chair of the Council of Europe’s
European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), Yanduan Li,
Chairperson of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination (CERD), Michael O’Flaherty, Director of the EU Agency for
Fundamental Rights (FRA), and Matteo Mecacci, Director of the OSCE Office for
Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), underline the pandemic’s
great toll on racial justice and call for equitable, concerted and determined
action across society to reverse this trend.
The Covid-19 pandemic not only cast a spotlight on the
structural inequalities and discrimination in our societies, but has made them
even worse, in Europe and beyond, as we see from this week’s spate of shootings
in the United States. We see new forms of inequality and discrimination,
particularly in access to healthcare and vaccinations. There have been attacks
against ethnic and religious minority groups, terrifying entire communities.
Online hate speech spread widely and scapegoated specific groups such as
migrants. The economic fallout of the pandemic has led to a rise in inequality,
stigmatisation and hatred. To turn the tide on the vicious circle of racism,
discrimination and poverty, greater efforts and closer cooperation are vital.
“Like the coronavirus, racism also mutated and new variants have
developped during the pandemic. All political and other actors need a deep dive
into current challenges in order to build a racism-free Europe and a
racism-free world; they must address novel risks urgently,” said ECRI’s Chair
Maria Marouda. “Many believe that the current global health crisis provided
them with a carte blanche for
manifesting hostile attitudes towards specific groups and individuals on
several grounds, which profoundly mirror the intersectional dimension of
discrimination. This leads to greater social polarisation. We have to fight the
battle by reaching out to victims of racism and racial discrimination and
protecting those who are assisting them and by establishing solid legal and
policy frameworks to make non-discrimination and inclusion a reality”, she
continued.
More than a year after its appearance, COVID-19
remains a serious global health and human rights challenge. It has touched all
countries and, unfortunately, exacerbated the inequalities already faced by
many minority and vulnerable groups, such as people of African descent,
indigenous peoples, migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers. Indeed, its
consequences have impacted the most vulnerable we should pay more attention
to,” said Yanduan Li, Chairperson of the United Nations Committee on the
Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD). “States should pursue their
efforts to address the disparate effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on minority
and vulnerable groups with regard to access to education, health care services
including to vaccines, employment, housing”.
“Even before the pandemic, persistent racism and
intolerance blighted the lives of many people across Europe. Covid-19 further
exposed the divisions in our societies. Not one person is defined by a single
trait; gender, age, economic and social standing all combine to multiply the
impact of discrimination and exclusion,” said Michael O’Flaherty, Director of
the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA). “We must work together with
impacted people in building societies that strive to respect everyone’s human rights
in all their diversity. With targeted measures we can tackle racism in all its
complexity.”
“The pandemic has had a particularly devastating
impact on racial and ethnic minority communities, who have often met with
prejudice and exclusion where they needed equal treatment and care,” said ODIHR
Director Matteo Mecacci. “States have a responsibility to protect vulnerable
minorities by adopting policies that favour inclusion and counter
discrimination at all levels, starting with public institutions and the
education system. By both preventing and countering acts of racial
discrimination and hate crimes societies become more inclusive and resilient in
times of crisis.”
Since the beginning of the pandemic, FRA has regularly published bulletins on the fundamental rights implications of
Covid-19 and the groups most at risk in the European Union. Its wide range of surveys regularly
underscore widespread racial discrimination and intolerance that many people
continue to face. ODIHR has also published guidance on
human rights challenges caused by the Covid-19 pandemic throughout the OSCE
region. CERD has adopted a statement laying
down States obligations under the ICERD Convention in the context of
COVID-19. At the same time, in its country monitoring reports
and statements as
well as in its recently published annual report,
ECRI has helped countries to detect and address pandemic-related problems being
experienced by groups of concern to ECRI.
The United Nations designated
21 March the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in
1966, in memory of the 69 people killed six years earlier in Sharpeville, South
Africa, during a peaceful demonstration to protest the apartheid system.
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