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GUIDELINES FOR NATIONAL ACTION PLANS
1.
Introduction This paper has been produced by the
European Caucus of NGOs attending the Second and Third Preparatory Committees
(Prep Coms) of the UN World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination,
Xenophobia and Related Intolerance (WCAR) and updated after the WCAR. Its
purpose is to identify concrete actions that states should adopt to combat
racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related forms of intolerance more
effectively at the national level. The
guidelines provided have been drafted in the European context. We call on the European States to adopt
their National Action Plans (NAPs) as based upon Article 66 in section “A.
National Level – 1. Legislative, judicial, regulatory, administrative and other
measures to prevent and protect against racism and related discrimination” and
Articles 99 to 102 in “2. Policies and Practices” of Part III. “ Measures of
Prevention…” as well as Article 167 in Part V. “Strategies to Achieve Full and
Effective Equality…” of the WCAR Programme of Action as adopted by its final
plenary session on the 8th of September 2001. We recommend that each
State use the following guidelines amended according to the national
conditions, appoint a special body with an explicit mandate to implement the
NAP and monitor its progress. In addition, the United Nations High Commissioner
for Human Rights is requested to review progress of the NAPs as part of follow
up to the World Conference against Racism (see point 3 below). In Europe,
implementation of NAPs should be included in the periodic reviews by ECRI. 2.
Overall strategies for national action plans 2.1
Legislative, and Administrative issues: States
should achieve the following objectives: -
Sign and
ratify the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial
Discrimination (ICERD) without reservations, withdraw any existing
reservations, and make a declaration under Article 14 ICERD allowing
individuals or groups to submit communications to CERD. -
Sign and ratify
the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant
Workers and Members of their Families (MWC), Convention on the Elimination of
Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and its optional protocol, the Rome
Statute of the International Criminal Court of Justice as well as other
relevant international instruments. -
Undertake a
comprehensive review of existing national legislation and its compliance with
universal and regional human rights standards. -
Revise,
integrate and enforce national legislation, regulations and administrative
practices in accordance with ICERD, MWC, CEDAW and other relevant international
instruments. -
Systematically
and routinely collect gender and disaggregated data on the forms,
manifestations and effects of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and
related intolerance. -
Establish an
independent Human Rights Ombudsman, with a specific mandate to monitor and
combat racial discrimination. -
Create
effective human rights institutions (composed of members from targeted groups
with gender and ethnic balance) with investigative and enforcement power to
make all recommendations for redress and restitution against perpetrators of
racist acts and speech. -
Implement
comprehensive anti-discrimination law enforced by specialized bodies, which
investigate and provide remedy in discrimination cases. -
Design or
revise and effectively implement national anti racial discrimination
legislation which would address direct discrimination, indirect discrimination
and institutional racism. 2.2
Special Issues for Targeted Groups: States
should achieve the following objectives: 2.2a Definitions of direct and indirect
discrimination
-
Adopt a
definition of direct and indirect discrimination. This could be provided by the
EC Directive implementing the principle of equal treatment between persons
irrespective of racial or ethnic origin where “direct discrimination shall be
taken to occur where one person is treated less favourably than another is, has
been, or would be treated in a comparable situation on grounds of racial or
ethnic origin, … indirect
discrimination shall be taken to occur where an apparently neutral provision,
criterion or practice would put persons of a racial or ethnic origin at a
particular disadvantage compared with other persons, unless that provision,
criterion or practice is objectively justified by a legitimate aim and the
means of achieving that aim are appropriate and necessary. -
Adopt a
definition that considers all its forms in economic, political and social
structures. In this, the definition provided by the April 2000 McPherson Report
on the UK Metropolitan police investigation into the death of Stephen Lawrence,
a teenager killed by a gang of white youths in East London, could perhaps be
considered and institutional discrimination could be defined as “...the
collective failure of an organisation to provide appropriate and professional
services to people because of their colour, culture or ethnic origin. It can be
seen or detected in the processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to
discrimination through prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness, and racial
stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people’. -
Take concrete
actions to counter and prevent residential segregation. 2.2b Discrimination on the Grounds of Culture
and Active Promotion of Diversity, in particular cultural diversity
-
Formulate and implement concrete public policies to ensure the
institutional development of racial, ethnic, cultural and religious groups
identities as equal values of an inclusive society. However, religions should never be used to deny, or even to curtail, women's
basic human rights.
-
Develop
cultural institutions (i.e. museums, cultural centres, etc…) that reflect the
diversity of their populations and the benefit of migration to society as a
whole. -
Recognize that
people belonging to ethnic groups with distinct cultural identity, such as the
Sikhs, face particular forms of discrimination on a complex interplay of
religious, racial, cultural and ethnic grounds and therefore may not be covered
by legislation and policies protecting ethnicity, and/or religion and/or race.
Ensure the protection of those people. -
Create a
special independent body/centre that will be able to conduct research on how
diversity in general and cultural diversity in particular can be
incorporated/reflected in national legislation; public, economic, social and
commercial institutions and authorities; national and local policies and
practices. 2.2c Roma, Sinti, Gypsies and
Travellers -
Denounce the
anti-Roma racism and discrimination against Roma, Gypsies, Sinti and Travellers
and to implement national policy programmes promoting institutional development
of the Roma identity and special measures to ensure Roma, Gypsies, Sinti and
Travellers’ equal enjoyment of their civil, political, social and cultural
rights to include quality education and equal justice, their equal access to
development resources and their full participation in decision-making processes
at all levels of authority, as well as to further to the recognition and
promotion of Roma, Gypsies, Sinti and Travellers non-territorial nation. 2.2d Refugees,
Documented and Undocumented Migrants, Non-Nationals, Victims of Trafficking,
Internally Displaced Persons and Asylum Seekers -
Establish,
review, monitor and enforce legislation and asylum and immigration policies
that ensure conformity with each State’s obligations under universal and
regional human rights standards. -
Review and
ensure implementation of national legislation and policies to be in accordance
with the 1951 Geneva Convention on Refugees and its 1967 Protocol, particularly
Article 13 on ‘non-refoulement’, and must refrain from denying refugees and
asylum seekers protection through visa regimes, carrier’s sanctions and ‘safe
third country’ practices. -
Revise and
update their definition of refugee to include gender based violence and must
recognize gender-based violence as a form of persecution and as grounds for
asylum under the Geneva Convention and its protocols. -
Enable free
and direct access to compensatory measures and reparations. -
Eliminate
discriminatory treatment by public authorities, in particular, the police,
other law enforcement officers, immigration officers as well as de facto
immigration officials. -
Abolish all
administrative, institutionalised, and legally differentiated practices such as
arbitrary and custodial detention of refugees and asylum seekers who have
committed no crime, physically, psychologically and mentally abusive methods of
restraint during deportation and detention, sexual abuse and violence, as well
as restrictions on freedom of movement, speech and association. -
Recognize that
undue stress on restrictive admission/immigration policies may produce negative
stereotyping and thus adversely affect persons belonging to targeted groups and
the integration of non-nationals. -
Review current
immigration policies to provide for the reunification of family, irrespective
of legal status as well as provide specific protection against racial
discrimination for women, children and youth migrant workers. Also provide equal access to services such
as housing, health, employment, and labour and wage conditions for migrant
workers and non-nationals. -
Adopt concrete
measures to fight the phenomenon of trafficking of persons by enforcing
appropriate legislation and by developing preventive measures in the countries
of origin. In particular, governments should sign, ratify and implement the
Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially
Women and Children supplementing the UN Convention against Transnational
Organized Crime (adopted at Palermo, Italy, December 2000). -
Grant independent legal status and work permit to
the spouse of the migrant worker and develop legislation aiming at protecting
migrants, in particular women, employed as domestic workers from exploitative
working conditions and sexual abuse.
2.2e
Children and Youth -
Sign and
ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and its optional
protocols, without reservations. -
Ensure that
the fundamental rights, as recognised and articulated by the UN Committee on
the Rights of the Child, are realised for all children and youth within the
jurisdiction of the state regardless of the child or youth’s legal status. -
Improve
reporting on racial discrimination against children and youth by actively
collecting detailed statistical data on issues that affect children and youth.
States should also support the involvement of children and youth in such a
process. In addition, states to encourage national and international human
rights institutions and NGOs to do the same and make such information available
to CERD and other relevant bodies. -
Utilise
existing structures such as the United Nations Youth Unit or the Directorate
for Youth and Sports of the Council of Europe to create effective new networks
that encourage, develop and sustain the talents of young black people. Support
and provide more access, whether this is financial or otherwise, to exchange
programmes that allow young black people to work with their peers from all over
the world in order to enhance international bonds of solidarity. 2.2f
Women -
Mainstream
gender dimension in the Programme of Action and the NAPs, in particular the
elaboration of gender-sensitive and gender-specific guidelines and indicators
and the use of sex-disaggregated data at all level -
Develop a
method to examine the interaction of ethnicity/colour and gender and to
identify multiple discrimination and the effects on women; this method should
serve as a basis when designing and implementing legal instruments, policies
and programmes aiming at the elimination of racism, racial discrimination,
xenophobia and related intolerance. 2.3
Education, training and public
information States
should achieve the following objectives: -
Research on
cultural diversity and the ways to promote and incorporate it into national and
international policies and practices. -
Promote
positive aspects of immigration amongst the general public by stressing the
value of diversity and the contribution made by migrants to society. -
Formal and
non-formal education, public awareness and training of public officials,
police, media administrators, journalists, the judiciary and educators on the
dangers of racism and discrimination and the merits of a culture of diversity
as well as the importance of embracing and actively promoting cultural
diversity and human rights principles. -
Guarantee
equal access to and same quality of education for all, especially children and
youth. Also consult and allow children and youth to contribute to the racial
equality aspects of teacher training. -
Introduce
human rights education in schools and the workplace, including anti-racism
programs in the school curriculum and institutions of higher learning. -
Review
textbooks and curriculum in schools to ensure that they promote cultural and
ethnic diversity, do not contain derogatory representations of minorities, and
eliminate gender and ethnic based discrimination. In addition, States should promote positive images of all
cultures and ethnic groups in textbooks and curricula and incorporate the
issues of historical as well as contemporary slavery, colonization, the
Holocaust/Porajimos [Nazi extermination of Roma] and other genocides and crimes
against humanity. -
Promote formal
and non-formal education for intercultural learning, identity assertion and
self-confidence building. -
Provide
multi-lingual education in order to enable students to benefit fully from the
education and, in relevant cases, provide the study of minority languages for
those groups who so wish. -
Promote
training and employment of teachers belonging to minorities and indigenous
peoples. -
Actively
involve minority children, youth and their parents in decision-making in
schools and in the development of curriculum. -
Make
information on the education system available to ethnic minority and migrant
women at the grassroots level and promote campaigns aimed at raising awareness
in ethnic minority communities of the importance of girls and women’s education
regardless of the different religious background. -
Encourage all
political parties to sign the Charter of the European Political Parties for a
Non-racist Society and to adhere at it. 2.4
Media issues States
should achieve the following objectives: -
Criminalize
the dissemination of racist, discriminatory and xenophobic content through the
media and those organisations which promote racial discrimination, xenophobia
or any form of intolerance and discrimination -
Set up a
national consultation body and a monitoring body to oversee racism disseminated
via new technologies (Internet, multimedia, etc) or support exiting bodies. - Support existing regulatory bodies such as
Complaints Bureau's (hotlines) which deal with discriminatory content on the
Internet and support Civil Society initiatives to create such, -
Encourage the
media, Internet Service Providers and publicity agencies to adopt
self-regulatory tools, such as codes of conduct, in relation to racism, racial
discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance. -
Encourage the
media to adopt employment policies that reflect the diversity of the societies.
-
Support
initiatives undertaken by civil society to provide accurate and objective
information in response to racist propaganda (e.g. quick response services,
anti-racist homepages, newsletters…) -
Provide a
state sponsored public-access internet site which provides information on
combating racism, promotes positive images of racial, ethnic, cultural and
religious groups to counter negative images and stereotypes and provides web
links to national NGOs that are active in eliminating racism, discrimination,
xenophobia and related intolerances. -
Undertake specific and urgent measures to end the very damaging effects
of pornography, which promote racist stereotypes against Black, Migrant, ethnic
minority women and women of colour who are projected as ‘exotic’ sexual
objects. 2.5
Remedies, recourse, redress, compensatory and other measures States
should achieve the following objectives: -
Acknowledge
that the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and the Holocaust/Porajimos, as well as
Armenian genocide, all of which have arisen due to racism, discrimination,
xenophobia and related intolerances are crimes against humanity. -
Acknowledge
that the all slave trades and colonization are important contributing factors to
contemporary racism. -
Use
reparations and other measures to redress the past and continuing impact of
slavery, colonization and apartheid. -
Acknowledge
and condemn contemporary forms of slavery, forced and bonded labour, genocide
and ethnic cleansing, eg. in former Yugoslavia or Chechnya. -
Adopt
effective anti-discrimination clauses in public procurement contracts to ensure
the elimination of discrimination on the grounds of race, nationality, culture,
ethnic origin, religion or belief, gender, as well as other grounds, from all
levels of their commercial and economic activities. 2.6 Strategies to achieve full and effective
equality States
should achieve the following objectives: -
Undertake
concrete legal action to combat institutional discrimination on such grounds as race, nationality,
ethnic origin, religion or belief, gender, age, sexual orientation, disability,
social status and culture within national economic, political, social and
cultural structures i.e. education, health and social services, justice, law
enforcement, media, labour markets, housing and access to goods, immigration
agencies, refugee councils and other state agencies. When tackling discrimination, states should identify and change
discriminatory institutional policies and practices, including individual
discriminatory attitudes and behaviours, on such grounds as race, colour,
nationality, ethnic origin, religion or belief, gender, age, sexual
orientation, disability, social status and culture. -
Ensure that
positive action is taken immediately to prevent and redress racial
discrimination -
Guarantee the
rights laid down in ILO Convention (No. 169) concerning Indigenous and Tribal
Peoples and implement the recommendations of the UN Declaration on the Rights
Persons of Belonging to National or Ethnic, Linguistic and Religious
Minorities. -
Mainstream the
issue of combating racism into all national policies and practices and all
spheres of public life, including all stages of decision-making. Mainstreaming involves the application of
equality proofing, guidelines, benchmarks, good practices, participation of
groups experiencing racism, positive actions, data collection, proactive
monitoring and impact assessment. -
Adopt
legislation ensuring that all residents enjoy full political, social, economic,
civil and cultural rights. 2.7
Involvement of civil society States
should achieve the following objectives: -
Ensure that
NGOs, trade unions and other interested groups of civil society are actively
consulted during the elaboration, implementation and evaluation of the national
plans of action. -
Have an open
dialogue with NGOs and other interested parties of civil society prior to and
during the preparation of national reports to the European Commission against
Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) and to the UN Committee on the Elimination of All
Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD), as well as in the follow-up on the
Concluding Observations adopted by CERD. -
Ensure that
all groups, especially children and youth, are consulted and involved in all
decisions concerning anti-racist and anti-gender policies at a consultative and
implementation level. 2.8
Local Authorities and Communities States
should achieve the following objectives: -
Formulate and
implement, within the framework of NAPs, local action plans with the
consultation and participation of local communities. -
Councils and
other local authorities should facilitate co-ordination and monitoring of local
action plans. 3. Implementation and monitoring of the NAPs at
the national and international level 3.1
NAPs A national
executive body, composed by representatives of relevant ministries,
representatives of civil society and particularly representatives of target
groups, should be charged with the task of implementing the national action
plan. Annual review of the NAP should be done by an independent
body in consultation with NGOs and other interested parties of civil
society. National Parliaments should
discuss this annual review. 3.2 Role
of the Council of Europe in following up the results of the World Conference
Against Racism Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance ECRI must be
given a specific mandate and it must be adequately financed in order to oversee
the implementation and evaluations of the NAPs by the year of 2005. 3.3
Follow-up A regional
follow-up Conference should be organised by the Council of Europe by 2005 in
order to evaluate progress made in the fight against racism in Europe and to
adapt national action plan to the results achieved. 3.4
Budget/Funding Allocation National governments must establish
specific budgets aimed at effectively implementing the NAPs. Furthermore,
financial support must be provided by governmental agencies to national and
international anti-racist activities of national NGOs and to NGOs active in
eliminating racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerances
on a Pan-European as well as global level. -------- xxxxxxxx
--------- |
