How to overcome discrimination in the world

The decision of the American philanthropist George Soros to funnel $100 mln to the renowned non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch proved the importance of NGOs in the promotion of non-discrimination principles in a today’s globalized world. Discrimination on the grounds of race, ethnicity, nationality, class, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age or health status – or a combination of factors – persists in different forms in every country in the world. Though Europe and Northern America are at the forefront of struggle for global human rights, there are still substantial violations even in their own backyards, especially amid the war on terror and the financial crisis 2007-2010, which revealed the old prejudices and pushed to find new scapegoats. For the time being, the necessity to fund already existing set of mechanisms and rules to tackle discrimination is in dire need. As we know, while the perpetrators of discrimination and settings in which it occurs may vary, at the heart of all forms of discrimination lies ignorance and prejudice.  That’s why there is a strong link between the power purchasing parity of a nation, its education level, prevalent faith and/or religiosity, from one part, and the maintenance of human rights in it, from the other one. Committed within society generally or at the hands of authority discrimination and repression are abuses of human rights as is the impunity too often enjoyed by those responsible.

Some governments go so far as to openly justify some forms of discrimination in the name of morality, religion, security or ideology.  Discrimination enshrined in law – for example, where the law restricts women’s fundamental freedoms or refuses to recognize Indigenous Peoples’ rights – strips away human rights. Such countries with a high level of GDP as Malaysia or UAE discriminate substantial groups of their people just in the name of Allah that is unacceptable after the adoption of Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

 

The general recommendations to handle discrimination and human rights violations as a whole are lined below:

1. To investigate and expose human rights violations and hold abusers accountable, easing and speeding up cut-through contact with victims through leveraging new web technologies, producing more in-depth reports and sociological surveys on human rights issues
2. To promote democratic values and open societies as necessary preconditions for fighting all forms of discrimination.
3. To enlarge and strengthen the mandate of competences of such institutions as International Criminal Court, UN NGO committee, European Court of Human Rights, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and many others actively advocating against all forms of discrimination
4. To include obligatory courses on human rights and tolerance in school and university curricula, to reveal first signs of stereotyping in children and handle it in an appropriate way, to push the issue of student exchanges and tourism, to step up awareness of rank-and-file people about their rights
5. To exclude intolerance in media, by providing tolerance courses among journalists and other media workers, to step up media coverage of human rights violations and best practices of non-discrimination principles.
6. To efficiently identify potential abusers, especially among parents, to deliver a social work with them, promoting the job of social worker as a prestigious one, share the most efficient social inclusion practices, increase health and support services for victims of violence
7. To promote social well-being, equality, employment and sustainable development as vital backdrops of human rights protection. People living in poverty face deprivation, stigma, exclusion, insecurity and voicelessness. The rise of Islamic fundamentalism and various fringe movements would have been impossible without a grassroots support that was provided by the mass unemployment, poverty and by applying double standards of world community as to human rights condemnation.
8. To enlist the public and the international community to support the cause of human rights for all, for instance to make stronger alliances between Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Freedom House and other interested actors to enhance common values and goals.
9. To adopt new and streamline existing International Human Rights laws, for instance in the fields of net-users (freedom of expression), sexual identity, where religious prejudices are still hindering to move forward. Some laws seems to be are necessary to render impossible a positive discrimination, as it’s being the case in many European countries.
10. To contribute to the separation of church from the state as it relates to the spirit of equality and religious diversity.
11. To increase government and non-government funding of social inclusion programs and human rights protection as a whole.

In times of economic crunch many people and many populist politicians especially tend to blame scapegoats for problems that are not their fault. This is the case in many European countries which are trying to build a wall on their borders and within their own societies. The successes of right wing and ultra right political forces in France, Netherlands, UK prove to stress the tendency. In the whole world crisis is intertwined with a less fair world and unfortunately people are starting to think in terms of inflexible categories, to feel feelings of hostility or anger toward other groups of people that are not the origin of those feelings.

Globalized world promised to be a fairer world of great opportunities. There are many things to have been done in the sense of fairness, including in the context of human rights. Fair attitude is considered to be a human attitude where exclusion or restriction of any people from opportunities that are available to other groups is totally unacceptable. The future world really promises to be a fairer place to live, but the only belief in that is not sufficient. Meanwhile, tenacious and fast actions are urgently needed.